His Honor
by NicoleMarieDubois
Summary: A secret romance with a judge jeopardizes Christine's career—and her life.
1. Preliminary Statement

**a/n: A legal thriller deserves a disclaimer, so here it is: This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and locations portrayed in this story are either products of my imagination or are used fictitiously. I have taken liberties with the layout of the Bronx courthouse and its procedures. Nothing in this story should be taken as legal advice.**

**And now, "May it please the Court..."**

Chapter 1: Preliminary Statement

The Bronx County Courthouse is odd. It lacks the traditional architectural elements of the American judiciary, the Grecian moldings and leafy capitals of the Manhattan courts. Instead, its sheer, stark, limestone walls give the unnerving appearance of a colossal (but monochrome) Rubik's cube. Its windows are arrayed in the deep, vertical lines of an Art Deco grille, stretching nine stories from the foundations to the roof. On every side, austere porticoes shroud its entrances in shadow. Stern stone statues guard it, and their sightless eyes hold no irises, as though the Damned defend it like sphinxes protecting a tomb.

Its vista conjured goosebumps on Roberto Ortiz's forearms despite the August heat. His dread was only a superstition, an old man's conscience seeking his providence at the courthouse door—but his heart withered under the statues' condemning stare.

He hastened up the limestone steps, through a brass revolving door, and into an intimidating lobby of vaulted ceilings and rich, caramel marble. Not even his footsteps dared disturb the silence. His lawyer had said to meet her on the fifth floor. Simple enough, yet Ortiz discovered that the courthouse was a confounding labyrinth, with _several _lobbies, each with its own bank of elevators, and every floor twisted around a central, colonnaded rotunda. And there was a mysterious mezzanine, accessible only to the judges and their clerks. Five stories above the busy streets, Ortiz passed three more elevator banks before realizing that he was back where he'd started. The florescent lights whined overhead while he shuffled along the vacant hallway lost, alone, and afraid. He sat on a wooden bench across from a courtroom's double doors, and his numb, shaking fingers dug into his pocket for his rosary.

A short time later, he heard an arriving elevator's hollow ping, rapid footsteps, and then a blonde woman in a suit hurried towards him. She hefted her messenger bag off of her shoulder and onto the floor by his bench. "Are you Mr. Ortiz?"

Ortiz nodded and forced his tense lips to smile.

"I'm Christine Dale. Your lawyer can't make it today, and I'm filling in. Are you ready to testify?"

The blond-haired, blue-eyed woman looked much younger (and more innocent) than the hardened, senior attorney who had handled his case until then. His smile fell before he realized it, and he answered her with a disconsolate, are-you-kidding-me stare.

Her heart fell with his sinking resolve. "Don't worry," she advised Ortiz—and herself. She wore a delicate chain around her neck with a heavy, bronze locket the size of a pocket watch, and she clutched it like a life preserver. "It'll be just like you practiced with Carlotta Contreras. This kind of hearing is routine." (But she'd never conducted such a proceeding on her own. It was just her luck that Carlotta had called in sick that morning!)

She heaved open the massive double doors and led him through a short vestibule and into a courtroom dimly lit and menacing in its grandeur. Cheerless chandeliers cast spidery shadows on dark, walnut-paneled walls. Grim lawyers sat in a gallery of benches that imitated pews in a cathedral —but instead of the altar and crucifix, two tables stood before a raised desk, behind which the judge's empty chair resembled an aged, black throne. Scrolled wood ornamented the high back, and battered, crimson leather padded the seat.

A placard on the desk was engraved with the name Hon. Erik R. Delgado.

Christine's nerves were trembling. Jumping. Flying.

Dancing.

Not because the name on the placard surprised her (Judge Delgado had presided over court on the fifth floor since before she'd begun practicing law), but because she knew that the name belonged to an uncommon man, infamous for his unconventional decisions—and for his unsettling countenance—

A shadow passed before her, and all motion within her froze. The judge had arrived in his usual style, slipping into the courtroom without the bailiff ordering everyone to rise.

Even without the bailiff, the lawyers unfolded from their seats.

Ortiz tightened his grip on his rosary. Beneath large, hollow eyes, Judge Delgado's face twisted with pale scars like crooked licks of flame along his tan skin. His thin, bruise-colored lips wrenched in a perpetual grimace on his right side. His hair was heavily salted with gray (Ortiz guessed the judge was in his mid-fifties), and each strand stuck straight out of his head in every direction as though he experimented with electricity.

To draw attention away from his face, the judge had pinned to his lapel a blood-red rose. Many lawyers had lost their train of thought while concentrating on that talisman of terror.

The jurist's appearance gave Ortiz no comfort.

Judge Delgado surveyed the courtroom with eyes like slate: gray, impenetrable, and frigid. When his glare found Christine, she thought he smiled—but then he took his seat somberly, and the clerk called the first case.

The case wasn't Christine's; she and Ortiz returned to their seats. To pass the time, she opened Carlotta's file to prepare for the hearing.

But as soon as she opened the file, another shade passed over her. Jake Ratner, an aggressive, middle-aged attorney (and her adversary in Ortiz's case), had answered the clerk's call and approached the judge's bench. A young black man followed, his eyes on his shoes and his shoulders hunched despite his youth. Ratner was suing him. He had no lawyer.

As the two men gave their names to the court reporter, Judge Delgado donned horn-rimmed glasses and scanned his clerk's memorandum. At last he spoke, enunciating each word in a slow, deliberate cadence while the court reporter transcribed:

"Welcome, Mr. Washington," he said to the young black man. "Welcome back, Mr. Ratner. Your defendant already offered to resolve this matter by paying his overdue utility bills in installments, but here you are."

Like gravel under silk, there was no mistaking the judge's impatience, though he voiced his remark scarcely louder than a sigh.

"Correct, Your Honor," Ratner replied. "That's why we're asking for judgment in our favor. Mr. Washington admits he owes the money."

"Well, isn't that convenient for you." Delgado flashed a sardonic smile before continuing to peruse the file.

"Uh, Y-Your Honor? Can... can I explain somethin'?" Washington wrung a faded newsboy cap in such violent twists that Christine worried he might tear the hat in two.

Delgado removed his glasses and gestured for him to continue.

"I lost my job 'bout a year ago, but now I'm workin' _two_ jobs. The credit cards, well, they all gave payment plans so I can get back on track. I thought these guys'd do the same, but instead I get a summons. I want to pay—I just need a payment plan. But they said I gotta pay it all now or they'll shut off my electricity. I don't have the money!"

Judge Delgado listened to Washington's distressing account with an icy poker face. In the festering silence that followed, he steepled his fingers against his dusky lips and examined the two litigants: Ratner folded his arms across his chest like a man on an easy stroll; Washington huddled in his threadbare sport coat as if braced for a blast of wind.

Both men studied the judge's corsage with riveted focus.

Neglecting Carlotta's notes, Christine offered up a prayer for Washington. If he lost his hearing, he would lose not only his lights, but he'd likely see his wages garnished or his bank account frozen. Her client Ortiz faced similar consequences if she lost his hearing, too.

Judge Delgado cleared his throat. "Mr. Ratner, my courtroom is not the place for _profiteering_." He sneered as he pronounced the word, as though it hurt his teeth. "Even if I granted your judgment, your client might recover the money gradually, over several months—as Mr. Washington already proposed. Your client only wants a judgment so it can collect the judicial nine percent interest in addition to the debt. But I will not reward your client for wasting my time."

This last statement descended like a thunderhead over Ratner, who straightened his tie and swallowed.

"So here's what I'll do," the judge continued. "First, I'm adjourning this hearing for sixty days, to give Mr. Washington time to get a _pro bono_ attorney." He looked directly at Christine when he mentioned a free lawyer, his dark eyes like two black holes with their own gravity.

What did he want from her? This wasn't her case!

She should have felt uncomfortable, but she was so relieved for Washington that she smiled back at the judge.

That broke the spell; Delgado quickly looked away. Wearing his glasses again, he consulted the calendar on his cellphone. "Second, and while the hearing is adjourned, I want the utility company to negotiate genuinely with Mr. Washington for repayment of his debt. Otherwise, Mr. Ratner, you'll have to explain to the court why his offers were unacceptable."

Washington clapped his hands together as if in prayer. "Thank you, Your Honor!"

"But Judge," shouted Ratner, flailing his arms, "the defendant shouldn't get special treatment just because he's unrepresented. He hasn't paid! He's still a deadbeat."

"Excuse me?" Delgado leaned over his desk and glared at Ratner over the rims of his spectacles. His smoky stare now flashed black fire, and his scars were vivid strikes of lightning against his darkening countenance. "I shouldn't have to remind you, Counselor, that no one passes judgment in my court but me."

Ratner dared to look the judge in the eyes. His glance quickly fell to the red rose.

Scowling, Delgado tucked the cellphone inside his jacket and turned to the clerk. "We've adjourned. Which case is next?"

The clerk handed him a thick file. "United Processing versus Ortiz."

Christine panicked. Instead of preparing her case, she'd been admiring Judge Delgado as he rescued Washington from financial ruin. Now it was too late. The judge would not be pleased to find her unprepared. With a final prayer as she touched the locket at her throat, she rose on leaden legs and carried Carlotta's folder to the Defendant's table.

Ratner was still fuming at the table to her left.

The judge reviewed his clerk's memorandum, then folded his glasses and set them beside his placard. "Give your appearances for the record, then we'll begin."

"Jacob Ratner, Esquire, for the plaintiff."

"Christine Dale, of The Bronx Defense Project, for the defendant."

Judge Delgado measured her with his discerning gaze, amusement crinkling briefly in the corners of his hollow eyes. In her present anxiety, she didn't know what to make of his expression.

"Defendant's motion," he said in his even tenor. "Miss Dale, what is this about?"

Christine took a deep breath and recalled what little information her supervisor had given her when he'd called her into his office earlier that morning. "United Processing claims that Mr. Ortiz owes them a credit card debt, but they never served him the papers for this lawsuit. We moved to dismiss the case on those grounds. United's process server already testified at a hearing, which was adjourned until today for Mr. Ortiz to testify."

Delgado settled against his tall headrest and steepled his fingers again. "Then you may begin, Miss Dale."

"Thank you, Your Honor." Having cleared this first hurdle, Christine waited while her client sat in the witness chair and gave his oath, name, and address to the court reporter. "Mr. Ortiz, how long have you lived at the address that you just gave?"

"Twelve years."

"Has anyone else lived with you during that time?"

"My wife, but she passed away last year."

"Objection," Ratner cried. "I want that answer stricken. It has no relevance."

The lawyers in the gallery whispered their surprise; an interruption so early into testimony was unusual. Judge Delgado frowned and turned to Christine for her response. The courtroom stilled.

"United's process server said he personally handed the court papers to Ortiz's wife," she explained, "but she was already deceased. Regardless, the process server's description of her is entirely false."

"Overruled," said the judge.

Christine gave herself and her client time to recover from Ratner's callous objection before resuming her examination. Then, reading the file as she talked, she inquired about the date of Mrs. Ortiz' passing and about her description while alive, including the features that the process server had gotten wrong. Ratner objected to nearly every question, no matter how unreasonable his basis. Yet even as she countered Ratner's challenges, she questioned her client gently, like a mother promising both protection and comfort. She lacked Carlotta's assertiveness, but Carlotta was so severe that she frightened her own clients. Building Ortiz' confidence through a milder approach, Christine controlled the proceeding like a seasoned litigator, admired by the other attorneys in the room.

"If you _had_ received a summons, what would you have done?" asked Christine towards the end of her examination.

"Objection. She's asking the witness to speculate."

Judge Delgado sighed and raked his skeletal fingers through his hair. "Miss Dale, perhaps you could rephrase the question?"

Meaning Ratner was right!—unless she could ask the question so that it didn't contravene the rules of evidence.

But the judge stared at her, and she couldn't think. Her hands shook as she flipped through Carlotta's notes. Half of them were illegible, and Christine had hardly had a chance to read the file. She chewed her lower lip as she tried to decipher the scribbles and collect her thoughts. Doubtless her boss would hear how she fumbled, and then he'd never trust her with another hearing. Meanwhile, the entire courtroom waited. At least her back was to the gallery—but the judge saw her blush.

A moment later, Judge Delgado addressed the witness himself. "Mr. Ortiz, have you received mail for your wife since she died?"

Christine's eyes lifted and her jaw dropped. Delgado, who had no patience for unprepared attorneys, was saving her from shame.

"I still do, sometimes." Ortiz turned to the judge, then averted his eyes to the dark rose.

"What do you do when that happens?"

"I open it. If it's important, I tell them my wife's gone. If it's junk mail, I throw it out."

"Did you receive any mail or package concerning this lawsuit?"

"No, Sir."

The judge smiled at Christine. "Anything else, Counselor?"

Her mouth was still hanging open. She wet her lips and replied, "Defense rests."

"Your witness, Mr. Ratner."

But Ratner had lost his poise. "If you were never served with papers, Mr. Ortiz, then how did you find out about this lawsuit?"

"I never got a _summons_, but I did get collection letters in the mail from United. I'd never heard of them. I took the letters to The Bronx Defense Project. They found out about the case."

Ratner pursed his lips. Obviously his client had not complied with procedures. But instead of conceding, he glared at Judge Delgado. "Aren't you going to assist me, too, _Judge_?"

The jab earned a few chuckles from the gallery.

"Don't provoke me, Counselor."

"I'm merely pointing out that this proceeding seems one-sided."

"If you're implying that the court should recuse itself, then file the proper motion. Meanwhile, I'm dismissing your case. You failed to establish jurisdiction over Mr. Ortiz." Donning his glasses one last time, he signed the order with a flourish like Zorro with his sword.

"Expect an appeal," Ratner muttered to the judge before turning to an amazed Christine. "I don't know what pull you have with him," he hissed, "but I intend to find out." In a terrible temper, he shoved his papers into his briefcase and stormed out of the courtroom.

Christine ignored him. She congratulated her client and advised Mr. Washington, who'd he'd stayed to watch her hearing. Had she paid more attention, she would have found Ratner's anger more troubling, given what came to pass days later.

**a/n: I appreciate reviews and do take all criticisms under advisement. For more stories of Erik in court by other authors on FFN, slide over to my C2! (And please suggest any that I've missed.) **


	2. Pleadings

Chapter 2: Pleadings

Curtains hampered the hot afternoon sun and transfigured Delgado's chambers into a dim dream full of shadows. The rose in his lapel perfumed the humid air with heady scent. He sat alone with his elbows on his desk and his head in his hands. His computer screen was dark, his papers and files neglected in haphazard array.

He drowned in thoughts of Christine.

All summer long, he had deliberated less on lawsuits and mostly on the exact name for the cornflower color of Christine's eyes. Her eyes were as serene, as uplifting, as glorious as a Psalm. When she was pensive, their color deepened like the evening summer sky, thrilling him with the mysteries of her mind. Over the years, her eyes had taken his timid heart as completely as a flame consumes a wick.

Now he imagined kissing her, tangling his fingers in hair as fair as the sands at Orchard Beach while pressing his crooked lips against her perfect, little mouth...

_ …Ay, Dios mío..._

He cleared his throat and pulled a legal brief from a pile for his review.

His infatuation disrupted his work—and he knew it. During a hearing a couple of months ago, he'd been so enchanted by the crease of concentration on Christine's brow that he hadn't heard a word that'd been said by either side. And often pining in his chambers, he'd fallen so behind that he had to work late.

Before Christine, Delgado had been level-headed. He'd earned his prestige through integrity and discipline, despite his terrifying appearance. But then he'd encountered a small miracle, a lawyer who was not afraid to lift her eyes above his rose boutonnière. Or to direct her conversation there. Or better yet!—to bestow her smiles there.

Christine was a skilled attorney, but her adversaries had the advantage of experience. She needed guidance, so Delgado had appointed himself her champion. But their situation prohibited him from training her directly. When on record, he had to be subtle; he could only instruct her by suggestion. This strange duet risked everything he'd achieved, for he never had complete control of himself. A careful, consistent observer would know what he up to. Yet he jeopardized his own reputation and had aided her progress for years.

If he didn't check himself soon, his work would go to hell.

He considered the facts and contended with his heart like a relentless lawyer reasoning with the judge: He was too old for her. And even if she overlooked his age, she could never have a romantic interest in an ugly _cabrón_. The evidence spoke for itself, Your Honor—a relationship with Christine was impossible.

_Irrelevant_, his heart declared. (Rather detached and matter-of-fact for an organ of pathos.)

But his heart was right. The circumstances didn't change how he felt about her.

Delgado stared at the brief in his hands. He hadn't worn his glasses yet. Instead of focusing on his work, he'd only compounded his problems and fallen deeper into despair. Obsession was like a labyrinth with many turns and no escape.

* * *

Christine lingered over lunch in a restaurant across from the courthouse. The place reeked of greasy French fries and was cramped with suited lawyers still working out a deal. She hardly noticed, puzzled as she was by Judge Delgado's assistance at her hearing. She set her locket on the faux-marble tabletop between to her soda can and paper plate, and opened it to display her father's portrait. He proudly wore his fire marshal's double-breasted blazer, white bell cap, and shining new badge. His broad grin revealed deep laugh lines, but his keen eyes counseled caution.

In his younger years as a firefighter, he'd often returned from his shift to find little Christine still awake and eager to hear of his rescues. He'd been like a hero in a fairy tale, with accounts of near misses and brushes with death—and always his invisible saviors. All her life, George Dale had assured his daughter that angels supported the men and women who lent a hand. When Christine chose a career putting out fires of a different sort, her father foretold her the same blessing.

Then his death last October had destroyed her faith. In the end, no angel had saved him from the cancer that had spread through his organs like grease fire.

What hope could she have? For almost a year, she worked with heavy numbness in her heart. Somehow she still gave her clients hope—sometimes happiness—even though her soul was empty.

Until Judge Delgado vanquished her doubts that morning.

But why had he helped her? _Was_ he an angel, like her father's rescuers? He was lenient with the poor and the unrepresented. But she knew nothing else about him beyond his distinguished profession. Resentful lawyers claimed he was the descendant of a Spanish Inquisitor or of savage Aztec nobles. Law clerks whispered that he practiced alchemy in addition to law, and that he had disfigured his face in a failed experiment. All of it sounded as far-fetched as his being an actual seraph, which had fallen from heaven like lightning.

Despite these rumors, his reputation was admirable. Christine had been devouring news of him with an interest normally reserved for celebrities. His rulings were sensible and thorough. The appellate division had reversed only a handful of his decisions. In his entire career, he'd never had to recuse (a very rare distinction). He'd received the highest honors from the New York City Bar Association, the Bronx Bar Association, the Latino Bar. The New York Law Journal had recently endorsed him for a promotion to Justice of the New York Supreme Court.

A police siren screamed on the avenue outside, and Christine found herself back in the restaurant. It was nearly empty now, only a couple of suits still at the counter. Her boss was waiting at the office for her report. She closed the locket and fastened its chain around her neck, then slid out of her seat, slung her messenger bag over her shoulder, and tossed her trash in the bin. After pausing to take one last, deep breath of cool air-conditioning, she shoved open the restaurant door and braved the heat.

Struggling down the busy afternoon street was like swimming in a warm, slimy swamp. Heat and humidity writhed on the pavement in undulating waves, blurring the crowds of pedestrians and the gutters full of empty wrappers and cigarette butts. She gagged on fumes of garbage, urine, and diesel fuel.

From the park across the street, the whistling tune of an ice cream truck competed with the traffic and the fading wail of the siren. A laughing crowd of children played on the corner, where cold water sprayed from a hydrant in bright rainbows. Two black women waiting at the bus stop fanned themselves while gossiping in rapid Nigerian Hausa. Christine slogged down the concourse, past an assembly of pensioners engaged in a serious game of dominoes on a card table in the shade, past a gyro cart clerk engrossed in an Urdu newspaper behind his tiny counter, past grand Art Deco condominiums that flashed and gleamed in the sunlight. Despite The Bronx's fearsome reputation, it had an abiding resilience, an enduring dignity beneath its cracked façade—

—much like its peculiar judge.

* * *

The Bronx Defense Project operated in a crumbling brownstone behind scaffolding vandalized in graffiti. A sign in the lobby read "Please Excuse Our Appearance While We Renovate," but there had been no improvements since Christine had been hired. Even so, the waiting room was always crowded with tired, frightened people, and there were never enough chairs. The baked-in stench of stale cigarettes didn't help.

Christine waved to the receptionist, then crept down the hallway and peeked into the copy room. Her freckled paralegal, Meghan Gil, scowled at a blinking light on the copy machine.

"You want a laxative for your paper jam?" Meg shouted at the copier. "God, when are we replacing this relic?"

The machine started beeping like a tractor-trailer in reverse.

"Arrggh!" Meg shook her fists at the water-stained ceiling. "Copy Machine Mechanic is so not in my job description."

Watching from the door, Christine stifled her laughter.

Meg rolled up her sleeves and opened a panel on the right side of the machine. The copier fell silent. She sighed with relief and closed her eyes.

"Hi, Meg!" Christine shouted.

Startled, Meg spun to the open door. "Christine! How was your hearing?"

"Carlotta had already prepped the client." She rested on an unopened box of copy paper while Meg investigated the machine. "I didn't really have to do anything. Then Judge Delgado helped with the questioning—"

"Come on, give yourself some credit!" Meg rose from where she'd squatted by the copier's open panel. "Just say you won."

"I almost messed up the hearing, Meg. Judge Delgado saved me."

"More likely he cast a spell on you," laughed Meg with a sideways glance.

"Not funny!" Christine leapt from her perch. "Just because a man looks strange, people think he practices—"

"Well, don't be so superstitious yourself! My God, you're so upset, you look ill. Why give him the credit for winning your own case?"

"It's like I told you—"

"Frank will tell you the same thing. He's waiting for you in his office."

She'd had a more inspiring conversation with her father's picture. Christine left Meg to find her boss.

Frank Richards was on the phone, but he waved at her excitedly to take a seat. A pile of legal briefs occupied the only other chair. There was no room for them on his cluttered desk, so she laid them over some books in one of the shelves against the wall.

"Anyway, welcome back to New York," he said into the receiver. "Hope you can make it tonight. I have some things to discuss with you." He winked at her as he listened to the response. "Yes, we'll talk more once you're settled. Glad you're back. Take care, now."

Frank looked like a tough guy with his black skin, horseshoe mustache, and the lanky physique of a Harlem native; but he had the disposition and animation of a child on his birthday.

"Christine!" He used his feet to push his chair around the desk to where she sat. "Sorry for dumping Ortiz on you last-minute."

"It's alright. Actually, the hearing went well. I already got a decision." She passed him Judge Delgado's order.

"Awesome!" His horseshoe mustache lifted in a grin. "You've really proven yourself."

"Proven myself! I had enough trouble proving that Mr. Ortiz wouldn't have ignored the summons. I couldn't think of how to ask without it being speculative."

He patted her on the shoulder. "It's OK. You'll get it with practice." He spun his chair and dropped the court order onto the feeder of a fax machine behind his desk.

"Then Judge Delgado asked the questions for me."

"_Delgado_ did that?!" Frank turned and stared.

She shrugged.

"I'll be damned." He returned to the fax machine. "But you covered the important stuff yourself, right? That the wife's description was wrong, and that she was already dead?" A short beep sounded with each button he pressed on the fax. "Your win doesn't just help Ortiz. It could boost our funding. I was just on the phone with a potential donor named Raoul DeChagny."

Raoul's name stole her breath like Delgado's had earlier.

Frank's voice sounded far away, as though she were underwater. "I'm faxing him your decision."

"Raoul DeChagny?!"

Her boss pressed 'send,' then turned back to her with a puzzled look.

"He's…. I think I knew him in high school."

Frank shrugged. "There can't be two people with that name." He laughed, then leaned over his desk to whisper, "He's considering giving us half a million dollars to update our technology and renovate the office. Your win today could clinch this donation."

"Wow." She wasn't sure what else to say. "Thanks."

"Good work." He studied her for a moment, then stood to open the door for her. "With Carlotta out, I might assign you the Albrizzio hearing for next week. Oral argument on the legal issues. The client won't need to be there. I think you're ready for the challenge." He paused. "Hey, know what? I invited DeChagny to Judge Polini's retirement reception tonight. You wanna take my place?" He winked. "Bet he'll get a kick out of seeing his old classmate."


	3. Interpleader

Chapter 3: Interpleader

The ringing phone jolted Delgado from another daydream. His secretary usually answered his calls, but he was in the rotunda with the rest of Delgado's staff preparing for Polini's retirement reception. The judge scoffed at the blank caller-ID and adjusted his necktie before lifting the receiver.

"Delgado's chambers."

"It's been a long time, Erik," hailed a lilting, accented voice. "Have you forgotten your old friend? your _Daroga_?"

The ancient Persian word rolled off the caller's foreign tongue, a nickname that Delgado had given his college classmate Nasr Khan.

The judge considered hanging up the phone. He had nothing to say.

"Oh, who am I kidding?" Khan continued. "We're no longer pals; you made that clear by your betrayal."

"Nasr," Delgado sighed, "I've told you before: The jury convicted you, not the judge. _You_ betrayed the city's trust and the fidelity of the NYPD by taking bribes."

The receiver emitted stunned silence.

"My apologies, 'Your Honor,'" teased Khan. "I'd forgotten you're more devoted to your Rules of Ethics than to your friends."

Delgado rolled his eyes.

"Otherwise you would have recused yourself from my trial. You had something to prove back then, didn't you? As a brand-new judge? Had to make an example of me, to show that the Law comes first over your friends?... And now you've found another sacrifice!"

An uneasy curiosity replaced the judge's impatience, and he leaned forward in his chair. "What are you talking about?"

"You were asked to recuse again, today!"

"How the hell do you know that?"

"You didn't see me in court this morning, Erik? I attend your hearings sometimes. Funny you've never noticed me in the gallery." He clucked his tongue.

Delgado's heart hammered so loudly that he feared Khan could hear it through the phone.

"You've lost your keen perception, 'Your Honor.' Or perhaps you were distracted?—by the lovely Christine Dale, Esquire?"

He ran a hand through his wild hair and struggled to control his voice. "No one asked for my recusal. If you were really there, you'd know that."

"Yet you said the word yourself. Probably suggested by your guilty conscience."

"Miss Dale and I are barely acquaintances; there's no basis for recusal!"

"Ah, yes," Khan sighed. "You're still as lonely as you were in college, before our Midnight Hours at the Masonic Temple."

Delgado glanced at his office door. He clenched the receiver so tightly that his hand hurt.

"No, you could never be Miss Dale's lover," Khan continued, "but I've seen the way you look at her. Your hideous face lights up when she enters your courtroom. Your dark eyes follow her as though she had them on strings—"

"You're imagining things!"

"You're in love with a lawyer in your court! How can you claim to be impartial when you'd give her anything she asked? It's only a matter of time before someone realizes your conflict of interest and files for your recusal."

"Are you blackmailing me?"

"I don't want your money. But if you don't recuse—"

"I will not recuse! I _am_ an impartial judge!"

"Oh, sure, of course you are. You're practically married to Lady Justice—since you're too ugly to have a real woman. But you're obviously in love with Miss Dale, and if you don't recuse, then I'll make sure she finds out what a freak you truly are! Don't you realize that an auspicious time is coming? After thirty years, Saturn is approaching Scorpio again—"

The judge slammed the receiver onto the cradle and gasped for breath. He was standing but couldn't remember having risen from his chair. Panic had replaced his calm courtroom bearing. This was much worse than the usual violent threat from an angry litigant. Nasr Khan knew too much. Nevermind the ignorant accusations of sorcery, satanic rituals, and vampirism that swept through the courthouse like a recurrent twilight tide—in truth, Delgado's past was more sinister than anyone could imagine. Inexcusable. Unforgivable. If Christine ever learned of his transgressions, she would never again lift her pretty eyes above his boutonnière.

Should he recuse, then, to keep Khan from telling her his past?

Of all his accomplishments, Delgado was most proud of his reputation for objectivity. The Bronx trusted him, and for good reason. He had never been the type of judge to favor anyone. Yes, he loved Christine and wanted to help her succeed—but that didn't affect his judicial decisions. And his feelings were _private_—he wasn't in a relationship warranting a public recusal.

And if he recused, he couldn't assist her.

Could he offer Khan something else? A public concession that he should have recused from Khan's trial? It would still damage Delgado's reputation, but at least it would raise fewer questions than recusing from Christine's cases.

He lifted the receiver. Khan had called from an unknown number; finding him wouldn't be easy. Hopefully he'd get through. It was going to be another long evening.

* * *

In traditional Bronx fashion, Judge Polini's retirement was a boisterous affair. Polini's clerks had sacrificed their happy hour to drape the rotunda in regal red satin, and the custodial staff had polished the marble floor until it reflected the buttery glow of the chandeliers. A long table beneath a mural of The Battle of Pell's Point offered hors d'oeuvres and champagne. Someone had put on salsa music. The hall smelled of perfume and cologne instead of the usual sweat and bad breath. Judge Polini himself, thin as a rail in his faded tuxedo, greeted guests at the rotunda's entrance. He seemed a waif standing beside his replacement, Judge Maxwell. A stern, no-nonsense African-American, Maxwell could have been mistaken for the party's bouncer or Polini's security.

Christine congratulated them both and stepped into the noisy hall, scanning the menagerie of lawyers, secretaries, judges, clerks, court reporters, and officers for her childhood friend. She recognized a few people, but none with whom she was comfortable making small talk. Instead, she sighed and leaned against a pillar—and wondered whether Raoul remembered her at all.

Polini and Maxwell passed her, heading for the refreshments.

"Erik's sorry he can't make it," Maxell told Polini as he passed him a drink. "He's upstairs drafting a complex decision."

"Erik!" Polini smiled. "He never leaves before eight. Sometimes ten thirty."

Maxwell tasted the champagne. "Rumor has it he stays late to practice the dark arts." He raised his eyebrows.

"This old courthouse excites the staff's imagination."

"But you have to admit, he has strange habits. They say he's so ugly because of a deal with the Devil."

"A pseudo-Faustian exchange for forbidden knowledge—reading litigants' minds, or was it mesmerizing witnesses so that they only speak the truth?"

"The story always changes."

"That's the way with hearsay," Polini concluded. The two judges carried their drinks back towards the entrance. "Erik's an exceptional judge. I'll miss his fanatical pragmatism."

Following the two judges, Christine suddenly slammed into someone.

"Whoa, there," cried Jake Ratner as he steadied his plate. "You're drunk already!"

"Oh, excuse me. I'm so sorry."

"Got your eyes in some other direction. Looking for Judge Delgado, I'll bet."

"Huh? No..." She turned back to the two judges, but their conversation had been interrupted by another well-wisher.

"Are you his date? Gonna bang his gavel so you can win your next case? Heading to his chambers to show him your briefs?" He snorted.

"Jake, that's not funny. I can win my cases without giving any 'favors,' and Judge Delgado's a fair jurist."

"He'd be flattered to hear you jump to his defense."

"He doesn't need defending."

A dignified voice behind them interrupted. "Well, that's one less person in need of your representation, then."

Christine and Ratner both turned.

There stood Raoul DeChagny with two glasses of champagne. Little had changed, except for the new strands of gray at his temples and the charming creases at the corners of his brown eyes. She'd forgotten his adorable dimples and the cleft in his chin—but not his charismatic self-assurance.

"Raoul!"

"It _is_ you, Christine, isn't it? I recognized you from across the room!"

Jake Ratner looked from Christine to Raoul, saw their awkward grins, and made his exit.

Raoul passed Christine a drink. He wasn't wearing a wedding ring. "The years have made you a true lady. You're exactly like the beauty in your father's locket."

"But now I keep Dad's picture in here." She touched the charm around her neck. "He passed away last year."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know. You should've kept in touch, Christine. You know I would have been there for you."

Her heart flipped. "I didn't keep in touch with _anyone_, actually. I had a lot on my plate. I worked through college, then law school... Then I lost Dad..."

"Yeah, that's a lot. There's so much work to be done when family passes away—on top of grieving, I mean. Funeral arrangements. Wills. Sorting their possessions. I'm going through that with my brother now. We lost him in May."

"Oh, Raoul! I'm so sorry."

"Actually, that's why I'm here. He left a donation in his will." He gestured with his glass as he explained, "He had me liquidate a third of his assets (he specified which ones), and he wants me to give the money where it would most help the poor. I'm came to see if the Bronx Defense Project is worth the grant."

"That's where I work! Frank Richards—my boss—You talked to him on the phone. He faxed you a court order that I won this morning."

"Oh! That was your case?... But I hear your office needs some renovating."

"Yeah, we're not exactly prestigious." Her mood descending, she stared down into her champagne and watched the strings of bubbles like a brooding mad scientist.

"What is it that you do, exactly?" he asked. "The Bronx Defense Project. I mean… I know you help the poor…"

"Well, we do a lot of things, actually. Um… We defend indigent debtors against collectors, banks, landlords… We offer financial counseling… represent clients in bankruptcy—"

"What's that up there? Christ!" Raoul's focus had turned to something behind her, far above them, and his nose wrinkled in disgust.

She turned.

Judge Delgado watched them from the mezzanine with his arms braced against the banister. The lapel of his black suit held a white rose instead of the red one he'd worn that morning. His pale scars and permanent sneer were unmistakable even from such a distance.

"That's the judge who granted my motion."

"Oh." Raoul looked sick. He set his glass on a table. "Let's get some fresh air."

With his arm around her waist, he led her out of the rotunda and into the sweltering darkness. The noises of the party fell away; all was silent save for late night traffic whispering along the concourse. The air carried the scent of rain and an electric charge that hinted of a coming storm. Her heart buzzed from the champagne and from the velvety evening with handsome company.

They crossed the street to the park, and she led him deeper beneath the trees.

"Little Christine, all grown up." He touched her cheek. "Your father would be proud. By the way, congratulations on winning your hearing."

"Thanks. Mr. Ortiz would've gone bankrupt paying that debt."

"You gave him a second chance. Hopefully he learned his lesson."

She stiffened.

For the first time, she noticed his expensive designer suit, his pricey watch. An investment banker, she guessed. Paid for college with his family's wealth. Even when they'd first met, she'd known he was from a different class. But her opinion of the rich had changed dramatically since she'd started working for The Bronx Defense Project. He couldn't understand her clients' struggles.

A ringing phone shattered the quiet evening, and she waited while Raoul answered his cell.

"I'll call you back in half an hour," he said into the phone. He ended the call and kissed her hand. "I'm sorry, Christine. I have to get back to the hotel. Can you give me a tour of your office tomorrow?"

"Sure," she replied, eager to be alone. "It was nice to see you again."

She watched him sprint through the park, back to the concourse to hail a cab. The peaceful nighttime silence returned, and she slumped onto a park bench.


	4. Joinder

Chapter 4: Joinder

Gathering storm clouds cloaked the stars, and humidity veiled the Bronx in a sultry haze. Like a gliding ghost, Delgado paced the park with his eyes on the swirling canopy of thunderheads as he tried to make out the constellations. Shadows shrouded his face but for some pallid patches of skin, and his white rose boutonnière shimmered like moonlight.

He'd spent hours trying to track down Khan. A Verizon customer service rep on night shift had refused to reveal the private phone number that Khan had used to call Delgado. The number on file with Khan's old probation officer was out of service. Even the internet had come up empty. Eventually the judge had given up, and now he crossed the park to his car.

Somewhere a cricket repeated its somber cry.

He had seen Christine again, earlier in the evening. But it might have been only a fantasy. Her sand-colored hair, which he had only seen caged in a bun or tied in a braid, cascaded down her back in golden, feathery waves. She had traded her suit for a billowing, siren-red dress. She smiled at a handsome young stranger who escorted her out of the rotunda with his hand on the small of her back.

That man probably wasn't even an attorney. Delgado had never seen him before.

He stormed across the grass. He thought he was alone, and in his fugue, he would not have even noticed the occupied park bench if someone hadn't called his name.

As though conjured by his breaking heart, Christine stood and waved, her sweet smile a beacon in the darkness. She was still dressed as he'd seen her in the rotunda—and now she was alone.

His mouth went dry. "Miss Dale!" he croaked. "You look stunning."

She lowered her eyes and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear—and he realized he'd forgotten to wish her a good evening, or at least to say Hello.

"Thank you, Your Honor. But… please call me Christine."

"And I prefer 'Erik' when we're off the record." He cleared his throat. "Are you out here alone this late?"

"I escaped from the reception. I barely knew anybody. You should've come."

"Oh. W-Well..," he mumbled, an odd sensation fluttering in his gut. "I would've— That is—I mean..." He cleared his throat again. "Y-You could have brought along a companion. Our invitations included a guest, right?" Hadn't he seen her with the young man?

Her sweet smile slipped away, and she fingered a large locket on a chain around her neck. "I don't have anyone."

"You mean you're not married? Not seeing anyone?"

She shook her head.

"But what about friends, or family nearby?"

She shook her head again and sighed. A damp wind rustled the leaves above their heads as he waited for her answer.

"My father passed away last year."

"Oh. I'm very sorry to hear that."

"My boss sent me tonight to speak to someone about a donation to our office. Turns out, it's someone I knew as a teenager."

"Ah." Her young man!

"Also turns out he's only donating because his brother left money for charity in his will."

She searched his face to gauge his reaction. Her eyes lingered on his scars with no revulsion, only their usual warmth.

He swallowed and backed against a lamppost, and his pounding heartbeats rang in the wrought iron. Sweat slid down the back of his neck.

"Sounds like he doesn't care for your clients' causes as you do," was all he said aloud.

"He doesn't seem to care at all." She rolled her eyes, oblivious to the stifling atmosphere. "Totally ignorant of the issues, probably doesn't even understand how helpless my clients are."

"Unlike many lawyers, you're not a mercenary."

"I definitely didn't take this job for the money! These people need help and they can't afford a lawyer."

"So, like Portia, you defend the debtors and charge them nothing. If only I had such a charming guardian angel." He offered a ghastly smile, encouraged by her criticism of his rival. "Perhaps I'll mortgage my flesh and gamble away my fortune, then consign my fate into your fair hands as your clients do."

She laughed—a musical staccato like water skipping over rocks in a stream. He put his hands in hers as though having accomplished his scheme, and she didn't flinch or pull away.

Her skin was very soft.

She curled her fingers around his own. "_You're_ their hero, Erik." His name rolled off her tongue as if she were tasting a fine wine. "Not me."

They stood so close that her breath fanned his scars. He didn't dare lift his eyes from where her little feet met his wingtip shoes. Remembering to breathe, he sucked in the heavy, febrile air. "Christine, you win your client's cases because of your talent, not because of me. Attorneys with twice your years of experience do only half as well. 'I never knew so young a body with so old a head.'"

He chanced a glance to see how she would take his praise. Her irises darkened and her forehead wrinkled in perplexity.

"You talk with me as though we're equals," she whispered, "when I'm just a… I'm not even fit to hold a candle to you."

"Christine." Without thinking, he lifted her hands to his lips.

He'd lost all reason. The dizzying heat had weakened his over-worked brain, as had the thrilling mist, the electric night air, and her lovely dress and smile and voice, and now her words of worship fanned the fire in his heart.

But he was committing sexual harassment! He stopped himself—But when he dropped her hands, she rose onto her toes and kissed the corner of his mouth. Or rather, the place where a corner would have been, if that side of his mouth wasn't a twisted, bloated distortion.

His eyebrows flew up in surprise. In his absolute confusion, his muscles stiffened against her embrace even as his eyes closed in surrender.

It was over in a split second.

"_Ay... Ay, mí amada_," he gasped, covering his mouth with his hand, "forgive me. I shouldn't have—"

"No, don't apologize." Her voice trembled. She was blushing a charming, bright pink and couldn't look him in the eyes. Instead, she adjusted his necktie against the bucking pulse at his throat. "It was _I_ who kissed _you_."

"… That's what I thought..."

But _why_ did she do it? Attraction? Temptation? …Curiosity?

And would she do it again soon?

She did not apologize or excuse herself. She did not take it back. The earth spun beneath his feet, and he felt he would die in a glorious explosion of golden light. Every imagined obstacle had just given way! His face didn't repulse her! His age hadn't mattered! Even the rumors hadn't deterred her.

But if she found out he was damned…!

He whispered a curse and removed her hands from his shoulders. "We shouldn't do this. You put yourself in danger."

"What do you mean!" She looked at him with such concern, her dear eyes as dark as midnight. "Are you in trouble, Erik?"

He nearly fell at her feet when she said his name. But Khan's threat had him sobered. "I'm not—Well, I… It's safer if we're not… involved. If word gets out about this—I mean, about us—I don't know if I could protect you."

"From what? No one has to know. At least until we're sure of our feelings."

He smiled as another warm, damp wind tore through the night, fluttering her dress and the tails of his suit as though they were dancing. He was fairly certain of his own feelings, and now hers as well—

A clap of thunder turned their faces to the sky.

"Damn, it's going to rain." He checked his watch. His hand was shaking. "Quarter to midnight. How are you getting home?"

"By train." She pointed to the subway station at the foot of the hill.

Neither of them saw the figure watching them from the shadows.

"A train this late at night?" Delgado frowned. "I have a car. Let me take you home."

She flashed him a dazzling smile. "Thank you."

A bolt of lightning ripped the sky above their heads, followed quickly by more echoing thunder. Delgado and Christine broke into a jog, racing against the rising wind. He opened the passenger door of his black Volvo sedan for her, then skirted the car and caught his breath behind the wheel as she gave directions to her Parkchester apartment. Rain began pounding the chassis like bullets as he pulled away from the curb.

Thunder rumbled again while they waited at a traffic light.

She watched the downpour, her hair mussed from the sprint to his car. He couldn't take his eyes off of her. Could he really pretend that tonight had never happened? How would he control himself when she next appeared in his court?

She turned to him, chewing her lower lip and bewitching him with her blue eyes. "No one has to know, Erik. Shouldn't we try?"

"Yes!... But," he raked a hand through his hair, "I have to take care of something first."

"You won't tell me what it is."

He unstrangled his necktie and worked open his collar. "Trust me. Let's adjourn, just for a little while."

The light changed, and he turned onto the concourse.

"Can we at least exchange phone numbers?"

He shook his head. "It's too risky to be in contact right now."

To change the subject, he asked where she would like to go if they could see each other again. Time passed quickly as they discussed theater, museums, books. Life in the city. Sometimes they just rode in silence, listening to the hammering rain and the rhythmic swipe of the windshield wipers. She confided in him about her months of melancholy following her father's death.

When they arrived at her high-rise, he gave her his suit jacket to use as an umbrella, and they ran through the storm to the lobby door. Beneath the eve, he swept her damp hair from her face and whispered heartfelt good-byes, promised an expeditious reprise.

She kissed him again, this time on his disfigured cheek.

Raving like a man mad with fever, he tore off his boutonnière and pressed it into her hands, swearing all sorts of tender endearments and embarrassing confessions—which she might not have understood, as he forgot to speak in English. She shivered from the cold, so he opened the lobby door for her before hurrying through the rain back to the sedan.

* * *

A half-hour later, he parked in his own driveway and turned off the engine. The downpour had turned into fog. He couldn't rouse himself to enter his lonely house. Instead, he studied his monstrous reflection in the rearview mirror and wondered what had possessed Christine to kiss him _sua sponte_.

Her sweet perfume still lingered on the cuffs of his soaked sleeves.

The thought of Khan disclosing his vilest secrets to her nauseated him. Even if his face didn't repulse her, his past surely would. He had to defuse that bomb before it exploded. Before anyone started pressing him to recuse. He had to get to Khan before Khan got to Christine. As the last raindrops chased each other down his windshield, Delgado closed his eyes and prayed for time.


	5. Counterclaim

Chapter 5: Counterclaim

Christine was having a very good dream. She still sat with Erik in his car, and it was still raining. Water flowed over the windows and veiled them from the outside world. Moonlight rippled over his patchy face as though the car were underwater. His tie was loose and his collar open, and she could see some of his chest hair. His goblin eyes glittered like liquid mercury.

He took her gently into his arms and trailed tender kisses down her neck. Every touch of his marred lips sparked a thrill across her shoulders. Then his long fingers brushed the hemline of her dress and slowly slid underneath...

"Erik," she sighed.

Her eyes sprung open at the sound of her own voice. She squinted at the sunlight streaming through the window blinds, then rolled over to read her alarm clock.

She was already an hour late for work!

Now wide awake, she tumbled out of bed, pulled off her pajamas as she yanked open her closet. Memories of last night flooded her mind. She'd never imagined that Judge Delgado would be interested in a junior attorney.

She paused with her sock mid-foot as she remembered that _she'd_ all but thrown herself at _him_. That wasn't like her; she was usually shy. And Erik was an older man, whom she knew professionally—a judge, no less! He was the same age her father would've been, had he lived.

_ Even so…_

She shook her head and finished dressing.

By society's superficial standards, Erik wasn't appealing. But his large eyes haunted her, and the red rose pinned to his suit conferred an eccentric charm and suggested a poetic soul. Too many judges were so uncaring that she valued Erik's sympathy for her clients. He was an interesting person (to say the least), a good man, and an honest jurist. And despite his scars, he spoke with an unassuming confidence that was damn sexy.

She adjusted the chain of her locket in the bathroom mirror before brushing her teeth. Erik's white corsage, on the counter by the sink, was her only proof that at least some of his affection had been more than a mere dream.

* * *

The receptionist scowled at her when she finally reached the office. "Frank wants to see you."

Probably to discuss her tardiness. "Thanks. Let me just dump my stuff."

Meg accosted her in the hall, a playful smirk on the paralegal's face and an indignant hand on her hip. "You told me you were going to Polini's reception just to see the grant guy," she hissed. "You didn't tell me you were hooking up with a judge!"

Christine's jaw dropped as her blood drained from her head and rushed back into her cheeks. "Oh, my God. What… Where—"

"It's in the paper..." Meg pulled the New York Post from her canvas bag and passed it to Christine. "Page thirteen."

Carting both the paper and her messenger bag, Christine stumbled into her tiny office and collapsed into the chair. Meg followed, watching Christine's mouth hang open as she read:

**Beauty and the Bench  
**Even a lawyer for the poor can bribe the right judge. Although the Hon. Erik R. Delgado, a judge in Bronx Civil Court, looks like he once kissed a meat cleaver, but an anonymous source saw him passionately kissing the alluring, blonde, Christine Dale, Esq., in Sigel Park during the retirement reception for Administrative Judge Polini last night. Miss Dale represents indigent defendants in debt cases for the Bronx Defense Project. As lawyers deal _quid pro quo_, rumor has it that she's giving Judge Delgado pleasures in bed in exchange for favors in court. Rumor also has it that the judge excels at hypnotism, so perhaps Ms. Dale isn't to blame. Neither of them could be reached for comment.

"Is it true?"

"Hooking up?! No, Meg!"

"But did you kiss Judge Delgado? We all know he's your favorite," Meg teased.

Christine threw the newspaper back at Meg and covered her face with her hands. She took a deep breath. Her cheeks were still on fire. "It wasn't Judge Delgado," she answered, thinking quickly. "It was Raoul DeChagny—the grant guy."

She hazarded a glance at Meg, who blinked in surprise.

"I know him," Christine continued. "I mean, from before. We haven't seen each other since we were teenagers."

"What! You and Mr. Moneybags were high school sweethearts?"

"Almost. His older brother owned a lot of real estate, and one of the properties was a Bronx tenement that burned to the ground. Dad investigated it for insurance fraud." Christine twisted her locket between her fingers. "Those days, Dad used to keep Mom's picture in this locket and carry it with him. He lost it at the site, and Raoul—the grant guy—found it later when he and his brother were overseeing cleanup. I guess Raoul liked Mom's picture, because he kept the locket for three months until he saw me when his family co-sponsored the Fireman's Ball. He knew I had to be related to the woman in the locket."

"And then you dated!"

"We only went out to dinner once. He was about to start college in the UK. By the time I started college too, we were out of touch." Christine sighed. "Anyway, whoever dished to the Post got it wrong. I guess all men in suits look the same in the dark? But Frank can't know about this," she whispered, praying that her lie would work. "I don't want anyone thinking I'm seducing Raoul for grant money."

"My lips are sealed." Meg placed a solemn hand over her heart. "But you've got bigger problems, because now word is out that you're bribing the judge with your body!"

Christine groaned. "Maybe that's why Frank wants to meet." And that explained the receptionist's attitude. Christine squeezed Meg's hand. "Thanks for the heads-up."

"Don't worry. I doubt Frank believes the Post. No one would kiss Judge Delgado; it hurts just to look at him!" Meg faked a shiver.

Before Christine could respond, Carlotta's voice shrieked from Frank's office: "I had everything prepared for that case—there was no reason for her to bribe the judge!"

Meg rolled her eyes at Christine, who squared her shoulders and hurried down the hall.

"I'm away for only a day," Carlotta continued, "and you give the case to some... some amateur—"

"Welcome back, Carlotta," Christine said from the doorway. "I hope you're feeling better."

Everyone turned to stare at Christine. Carlotta's fluffy face was red with anger. Frank looked very tired, and no doubt he had been getting an earful all morning. Raoul leaned against one of Frank's bookshelves, his arms crossed and his lips turned down.

She forgot her promise to show him the office!

"Come in and take a seat, Christine," said Frank. "I'm very concerned about this article in the Post. You've read it?"

She nodded as she lifted a few case files from the only other chair, next to Carlotta. Finding nowhere to put the files, she held them on her lap. Carlotta's overwhelming perfume made her head throb.

"Now, whether the report is true or not—"

"It's not true, Frank, believe me—"

Carlotta's nostrils flared. "_¡Cállate, puta!_"

"Whether it's true or not," Frank shouted, rising from his chair, "The Bronx Defense Project will avoid even the appearance of impropriety. I can't allow you to appear in Delgado's court with this kind of gossip spinning around town. And since Carlotta has returned, she'll handle the Albrizzio case next week. Return Carlotta's files by this afternoon."

Helpless, Christine looked to Raoul. He wouldn't meet her eyes.

Carlotta tossed her long, black hair. "Maybe Christine should join me next week, as silent co-counsel, so she can learn how to litigate with her lips properly."

Frank considered this proposal, and smoothed his horseshoe mustache as though rubbing it for luck. "That's actually not a bad idea."

"Assuming you don't take another random leave of absence!" Christine cried.

"So what if I called in sick? I didn't want to see Judge Doom's ugly face yesterday. It's no excuse for how you handled it, _puta_!"

"Carlotta," Frank sighed, "go catch up on your work. I'll talk to Christine. Please close the door on your way out."

He waited until the door shut before sitting on the edge of his desk. Not knowing what she was expected to do, Christine sat gripping the files in her lap.

Raoul dropped into the chair vacated by Carlotta. "How did this happen?"

"Honestly, I don't know."

"You've been working here how many years?" asked Frank, still tugging at his mustache. "About five, I think. You don't seem like that kind of girl. And I've known Delgado for longer. This is beneath him."

Raoul cleared his throat. "Judge Delgado wasn't even at the reception, or outside in the park. We caught sight of him up on the mezzanine at one point, that's all."

Frank kicked his heels against the desk. "So, where did this story come from?"

The words were out before she thought them through. "Jake Ratner. He thinks there's something between Erik—between Judge Delgado and me."

"Who's Jake Ratner?" Raoul asked.

"An attorney for debt collectors. Yesterday at the Ortiz hearing, he almost asked Judge Delgado to recuse." She turned to Frank, who stopped kicking. "He didn't think it was fair that Delgado helped me."

"You think Ratner made up the story?"

She shrugged and tugged at her locket. "He also made some inappropriate comments about us at Judge Polini's reception." The more she thought about it, Ratner had probably followed her into the park and had seen her in Erik's arms. The thought made her stomach lurch.

"But," Frank said, "he must know that this news will trigger an Ethics Inquiry, which will uncover his fraud."

_Ethics Inquiry!?_ She squeezed her locket. Lying to her boss was one thing, but what if she had to testify to a committee, under oath? What if Ratner produced proof to back up his claim—did he make a cellphone video of the two of them? She could be disbarred! And even if her license remained intact—She already struggled to fit in at the office, with her abilities always in doubt because she was a young woman instead of a middle-aged man; if word got out that she was romancing a judge—one so ugly that no one looked at him and Meg said he hurt her eyes and Carlotta called him Judge Doom—it would poison whatever respect and trust she'd earned in her short career.

"Well, that's all I've got." She slid her locket around its chain. Was Erik suffering something similar at the courthouse?

Frank shrugged. "OK. At least you got to meet Mr. DeChagny at the reception. Sir, I hope this article doesn't dissuade you."

"Not at all."

"Christine will show you around the office now."

* * *

Seething from a sleepless night and a terrible morning, Delgado knocked on the door to the Administrative Chambers.

His new superior glanced up from behind the desk, broad shoulders filling the chair. "I think you know why I called you in here. Please sit down. And close the door behind you."

"Probably to discuss the Post article," Delgado muttered as he took his seat.

The walls of Arnold Maxwell's new office, paneled with more dark walnut, had been stripped of Polini's honors and awards. Maxwell hadn't taken time to hang his own accolades. It was like sitting inside a large coffin.

"Any truth to these rumors?" Maxwell asked, tapping the opened newspaper on his desk.

Delgado snorted. "Arnold, look at me."

Maxwell raised his eyes to the tie around Delgado's throat.

_¡Que cobarde!_ "Not my tie, goddammit! In case you hadn't noticed," he continued, leaning over the desk and gesturing to his deformities, "I've got the worst hollow eyes this side of the grave. My hair has gone gray. If that doesn't turn her off, I've got congenital mutilations that plastic surgery can never completely repair." He crossed his arms over his chest, beneath his red boutonnière. "Do you honestly believe any woman would make such an arrangement—with me?!"

Laughing uneasily, Maxwell shook his head. "You've got me there."

"So, if you'll excuse me, I have a trial this morning." Delgado rose.

"Just a minute. You had a case with the Bronx Defense Project just yesterday, didn't you?"

"Along with about fifteen other matters, yes."

"And defendant Ortiz won his motion."

Delgado paused, his mood descending. "Are you suggesting that Chri—that Miss Dale is incapable of winning a motion without my assistance?"

"You tell me, Erik. Did you assist?"

"I examined the witness using the correct form of a question. To move the case along. It wasn't relevant to the outcome."

"Not relevant to the outcome? Didn't she want the case dismissed for failure to serve her client? Didn't you help her by asking questions related to service by mail?"

"For God's sake, Arnold, read the transcript! The process server claimed to serve someone who's actually already dead!"

"Alright! Alright! How many other cases with the Bronx Defense Project are on your docket?"

"I don't know." He raked a hand through his wild hair as he counted in his head. "Maybe twenty? Why?"

Maxwell lifted the newspaper. "If anyone asks you to recuse because of this article, I want to be notified and I expect you to recuse."

"But I have no reason to recuse."

"Why play with fire, Erik?" Maxwell dropped the paper back on the desk. "Recusal doesn't mean you admit any wrongdoing. Judges recuse all the time, 'to avoid the appearance of impropriety.' You know that."

"But someone tipped off the Post in order to affect my assignments." Delgado stepped forward. "I know who did this. He wants me to recuse from a case—any case—and has made Miss Dale his undeserving target."

"Why would someone want you to recuse from random cases?"

"I'll handle it. I can subpoena that reporter and expose the whole scheme."

"No. Don't make this personal. You've built a nice reputation as a fair judge. We're talking about just one attorney, twenty cases maximum. That's not even ten percent of your docket. Recuse from her cases if you get a motion, and the problem is solved."

"Arnold, I have no reason to recuse!" He slammed his fists on Maxwell's desk, hard enough to make everything on it rattle.

"You obstinate fool!" Maxwell stood. This time, he met Delgado's eyes with an unwavering glare. "I have a lot of respect your judgment, usually," he said through his teeth. "But as this court's administrator, I'll do whatever's necessary to protect the court's integrity, including ordering your suspension."

Delgado crossed his arms.

"Your response to this article will determine your tenure here. Traditionally, when an accusation reaches this level, judges recuse. Refusal publicly expresses your disdain for professional responsibility."

Maxwell returned to his seat and tossed the newspaper into the trash. "Maybe you were right to deny your friend's motion ten years ago. But it's different this time; you don't have _Moreno_ discretion. This isn't just an allegation of friendship or even romance. You're now accused of engaging in a relationship whose alleged _purpose_ is to manipulate your verdicts. Don't fuck this up further with your stubborn insubordination. Go to your trial, and think seriously about your future."

**a/n: I'm hoping for feedback on my writing, so please leave a review and let me know what you like/ hate about the story. If you're shy, feel free to send me a private message or leave an anonymous review.**


	6. Affirmative Defenses

Chapter 6: Affirmative Defenses

Tearing into his chambers moments after battling Maxwell, Delgado had little time to lose. He had a trial in ten minutes, but he shut the door and lunged for his phone. Khan had lied to the Post. Messing with Delgado had been one thing, but he'd be damned if he let Khan destroy Christine's life as well. Maybe the Post reporter had Khan's phone number.

Working the phone as quickly as he could, Delgado called in every favor, and even threatened to use his judicial muscle in order to reach the reporter. But despite what one might expect of a judge with ten years on the bench, he had no experience intimidating anyone for his own advantage. Never before, in his entire career, had he dialed someone and said, _"I'm a judge! Do as I say!"_ His power was restricted to the courtroom. Now he discovered that overreaching was like stretching—his limits improved with practice. After a brief "workout," he had the number for the journalist's personal cellphone.

The man picked up after two rings. "Joe Becket," spat a voice in a cantankerous Queens accent.

"This is Judge Erik Delgado. You published a tip this morning concerning myself and an attorney appearing in my court."

"…And?"

"I need to know who gave you the tip."

"I got no obligation to reveal my sources."

"It was Nasr Khan, wasn't it?"

"I'm not telling ya nothin'."

"You'll have to," said Delgado, raising his voice, "when you get a judicial subpoena. You want to do this the easy way? Tell me now, over the phone, and I'll keep the intelligence to myself. But make me sign an order, and you'll have to disclose your source publicly."

"A subpoena?! But I didn't break any laws!"

"Your source lied, Mr. Becket, and he's made you a pawn in his attack against my jurisprudence."

Becket considered. "I can appreciate your situation, Your Honah, but unless you wanna go on the record, I can't disclose my source. I dunno how you run your court, but the Post goes by the book."

The reporter had called his bluff. Well, he wasn't the first to accuse Delgado of breaking the rules. Perhaps with more "exercise," the judge could reach over Becket's head. Meanwhile, he was late for trial.

"Then watch out for a subpoena," Delgado muttered, and hung up the phone.

* * *

The fluorescent lights flickered on in The Bronx Defense Project's dumpy conference room. Much like Frank's office, collections of casebooks and piles of files occupied virtually every surface, including the greasy bookcases along the walls. One of the shelves was loose, and its contents tilted as though the office were a sinking ship leaning precariously into the sea. Cardboard boxes had been piled so high beneath the single, small window that they blocked most of the natural light.

Christine sighed and turned to Raoul. "Sorry about the smell. Our custodial staff can't seem to get rid of it."

"Well, it adds to the Musty Basement ambiance. You actually have meetings in here?"

"We don't have any other space big enough. You saw how small my office is."

"_This_ is where you counsel your clients?" Keeping his hands safely in his pockets, he stood on the tips of his toes and tried to see out the tiny window with its bleak sunlight.

"As you can probably guess, it's even less ideal for holding depositions."

"God, no."

"Or meeting potential grantors."

He turned to her, his eyebrows drawn together above his soft, brown eyes. "Don't be embarrassed, Christine. I came to help. I need to see all of this."

"Are you sure you felt the same when I showed you the leak in the bathroom? and the hole in the floor?"

"You deserve better than this. I'll fix it for you."

"Not for me. Don't do this for me." With her thumb and forefinger, she lifted a dirty glue trap from the faded carpet and hauled it into the nearest wastebasket. "It's my clients who deserve better than what we've given them."

His eyes swept the room in confusion. "But they're used to this, aren't they? I mean, you're giving them a free service. I'm sure they're not expecting extravagance."

"They deserve dignity. They deserve to meet their legal counsel in a room that doesn't smell like mold and pee. They deserve a reliable copy machine to print out the briefs we need to file in court. We're supposed to give them hope; the possibility that life won't always be so bad."

He nodded. "This is more than a job to you."

"Of course, it is! Why else would I be here?"

She was still disappointed that the grant wasn't his own initiative—that he was unmoved by the plight of the poor.

"I understand," he said, interrupting her sad thoughts. "Your father had the same outlook, didn't he? 'Serve and protect'?"

He did _not_ understand. She sighed and turned away. To give herself something to do, she tried to straighten the tipping bookshelf. "Nothing mattered more to him. He even forgot about me, sometimes. He said it was his way of paying the ransom on his soul."

"My father was so different from yours." Raoul helped hold the shelf while she adjusted the supports. "But I want to change. I'm not what you think." He took her hand. "I want to match Philippe's grant."

"A _million_ dollars?" She backed away. "You want to give The Bronx Defense Project a million dollars?"

"Five-hundred thousand from Philippe's estate, and another five-hundred thousand from my own account. Why not? From what I've seen, _half_ a million isn't going to be enough. You said yourself that your clients deserve more."

Christine was still backing away, hardly believing what she'd just heard. "But… Why?"

"Well, I can't say it's for you," he replied, his brown eyes smiling. "Since you've forbidden it. So it's for your clients. For your cause."

She pressed her back against the grimy wall and frowned at him.

He leaned closer and whispered in her ear, "Let me love the things you love, Christine. Give me that chance."

A hot blush flamed over her face, from to the roots of her hair and down her neck. "But I—"

The door opened, and Meg nearly dropped the heavy casefiles she'd been carrying. "Shit! I'm so sorry."

Raoul jerked away from Christine as quickly as if she'd combusted.

"Meg, it's OK," Christine protested. "I was just showing Mr. DeChagny the conference room."

"Liar." Meg smirked before stepping back into the hallway and closing the door.

Embarrassed, Raoul studied his shoes until Meg was gone. "Forgive me. It's just that I'm very glad to see you again. I… I thought a lot about you after I left for Oxford."

Christine had no idea how to reply, and instead gathered the scraps of paper scattered over the scarred conference table. Muffled conversation droned from someone's office next door.

He trapped her hands. "Please. Listen to me. If you're not interested, or if you're seeing someone else, at least let me make this donation. I'm not… I can't make the same sacrifices you've made. You have this virtuous calling, and it doesn't speak to me the same way it cries out to you. But let me do this much, at least. Please."

He squeezed her fingers, rustling the crumpled papers in her fists.

"It's a lot of money," she replied. "I was just surprised, that's all."

With a sigh of relief, he released her hands.

"I mean, we would definitely welcome your donation." As she tossed the papers in the trash, she imagined how grand the company would be after a _million dollar_ renovation. "I could draft an itemization of the cost of repairs, if that's helpful."

"When it's all finished, I'd like to take you out for dinner."

"Aren't you turned off by what the press says about me?" she quipped.

"I thought I'd never see you again; I'm not gonna leave so easily. But be careful, Christine." He touched her cheek as he had in the park. "The Press Pool is full of snakes. I'm speaking from Philippe's experience. They'll print anything, even if it ruins someone's life. And the only thing you can do about it, is do your best not to give them a chance."

* * *

Delgado was constantly distracted while presiding over his week-long trial. For one thing, he suspected that everyone in the courtroom had read the damned Post. He could almost sense it, from their manner of avoiding his eyes—but then again, that was normal, wasn't it? Paranoia also had him constantly inspecting the gallery for Khan's figure, with so much focus that he sometimes missed hearing the testimony. He still worried about Christine, was dying to hear her voice, to know that she still had her job, that she was safe. And his mind kept wandering back to her surprise kiss, even at the most unromantic moments as the expert witness described a dislocated shoulder and fractured collarbone in painful detail.

At his first opportunity, he called the recess for lunch.

Retreating to his chambers during these breaks, he drafted his subpoena of the Post. He couldn't serve the subpoena without an underlying case, but he knew it wouldn't be long before someone filed for his recusal. Then he would have his opportunity.

He could wait.


	7. Adverse Inference

Chapter 7: Adverse Inference

Christine paced the marble hallway outside Judge Delgado's courtroom. Although Frank had banned her from all appearances here, the Albrizzio hearing, for which she was to be Carlotta's "silent co-counsel," was scheduled in Erik's court.

She hadn't seen Erik since the surreal night of the reception. But she'd dreamed of him every night, sometimes dancing in his arms, sometimes gazing into his eyes beneath a wide sky full of stars. Every day, she'd tried to catch him parking his car in the morning or walking the streets to order his lunch, but meeting him in the rush-hour crowds had been as impossible as finding a four-leaf clover in an overgrown field.

Hope was swallowed by profound sorrow. The Post article had probably given him second thoughts; she wasn't worth risking his career.

Still she looked forward to seeing him today, however he felt about her.

Stiletto heels echoed in the corridor as Carlotta marched from the elevator bank. Christine steeled herself.

"What are you doing out here?" Carlotta shouted from several yards away. "Did you check in with the clerk?"

"I can't go in there alone," Christine hissed. "Everyone's read the Post by now!"

Carlotta rolled her eyes. "Just keep your mouth shut and watch how this is done." She all but dragged poor Christine across the hall and through the double doors.

Erik was already on the bench, hearing another case, and the gallery was almost full. As Carlotta burst into the courtroom with Christine in tow, the attorney giving argument faltered, the court reporter looked up from her transcripts in exasperation, everyone turned to see who was interrupting proceedings. Judge Delgado glanced at the opened door and leapt to his feet at the sight of Christine—a reversal of custom, since everyone usually stood for _him_ when _he_ entered the courtroom.

His jurist's façade vanished. His jaw hung open in surprise (and pleasure?) at having her again in his court. His gray eyes shone in their deep sockets, their spectral hue enhanced by his silver-colored suit. His swarthy cheeks blushed, his pale abnormalities more pronounced.

In all these years, she'd never seen him more handsome.

No one else noticed his fluster. They were all fixated on his rose corsage—which, for the first time, was a whimsical, cornflower color.

He pursed his lips and continued to stand as his clerk hurried to Carlotta to take her appearance. The interrupted lawyer cleared his throat. Judge Delgado glared at him, but returned to the bench and resumed proceedings.

Done with the clerk, Carlotta pulled a stricken Christine towards the back of the gallery. More than one head turned as the two tardy women crossed the room, and Christine kept her head low.

Jake Ratner winked at her theatrically.

She stifled a groan and refused to acknowledge him. He was the last person she wanted to see today—and in Erik's courtroom, of all places, with her knees turning to jelly over the judge.

She had to wait the rest of the morning before her case was called. Although Carlotta spent the time reviewing her case file and responding to emails on her smartphone, nothing could divert Christine from watching Judge Delgado. He heard each attorney with enduring courtesy, his eyes half closed as he considered the validity of the speaker's reasoning. Sometimes he smiled at a lawyer's witty remark. To many of them, he promised to render a decision in the coming weeks. A few he ordered to behave themselves. His voice drove through her mind like a purring motorcycle: smooth and low with a thrilling undertone.

As he finished each hearing, many of the lawyers returned to their seats in the gallery. Some had recognized Christine, had read about her in the Post, and decided to watch her hearing. Others who didn't know her stayed to discover the reason for Judge Delgado's deference when she'd entered. Carlotta's friends, too, wished to offer her their support. As the morning wore on, the gallery became a crowd of spectators.

At last the clerk called the Albrizzio case.

Ratner stood for the plaintiff. Christine followed Carlotta to the defendant's table, her stomach twisting in terrible knots the closer she came to Erik's bench. She could look but not touch—and, as silent co-counsel, she couldn't even speak. And no matter how she behaved, Ratner was bound to interpret her feelings.

To make matters worse, last night she'd dreamed that she was alone with Erik here in his courtroom, on his bench—in his lap. He was hard for her. He held her wrists firmly behind her back and pulled her so close that his ragged jaw tickled her ear. In a courtroom monotone, he'd issued private, provocative orders.

Now all business, he wore his glasses and reviewed his clerk's memorandum.

His gaze slipped from the page to eye her over his horn-rimmed frames, and she forgot to breathe—a searing fire lit his dark eyes. _Did he have the same dreams?_ "Um... Excuse me, I..." He took a deep breath. With both hands, he slowly removed his glasses and smoothed his hair. "Please be seated, everyone. Um... This is Plaintiff's motion? Mr. Ratner, please state your case."

Ratner stood and buttoned his suit. If he noticed what passed between Christine and the judge, he gave no sign. "Your Honor should judge in our favor, as there are no issues for trial. The plaintiff, Fordham Realty, is seeking an eviction for non-payment of rent." He scowled at Carlotta. "Defendant Albrizzio claims she paid, but she can't prove even a single payment. The evidence is overwhelmingly in our favor," he concluded. "Evict her."

Christine opened her mouth to object, but Carlotta beat her to it. "Mrs. Albrizzio is over eighty years old," she snapped, rising from her seat. "She made consistent payments for twenty-five years. Now that her health is failing, she trusted her forty-five-year-old son to take her cash and pay the rent. He stole the money instead."

Judge Delgado stared at Christine, his brow creased in confusion over her silence.

Carlotta continued, "And he read the mail for her, too. That's why she never made a single payment—because she had no knowledge of her son's theft, nor of the landlord's complaints."

"Then why didn't she call the police?" challenged Ratner. "It doesn't change the fact that she hasn't paid her rent!"

Judge Delgado wasn't paying attention. He saw only Christine, and spoke to her in glances instead of words. Even as she watched Carlotta and Ratner debate, she felt Erik's iron gaze slide over her like a caress.

"—not her fault," Carlotta was saying.

"There is no evidence—"

Judge Delgado stirred and tapped his gavel, and the attorneys fell silent.

"For the record," he said calmly, "another attorney is present for the defendant, and she hasn't given her appearance."

Christine swallowed. Beside her, Carlotta's mouth dropped open as she realized that the judge had completely ignored her statements.

Ratner only smirked.

Erik turned bodily to Christine, such that not only his blazing eyes acknowledged her, but so did his shoulders and chest and blue corsage. "Miss Dale, are you here to present argument?"

"I'm… No, I'm just… I'm here only as silent—"

"_¡Cállate, puta!_" Carlotta hissed at her. "You're ruining—"

"Order! Miss Contreras!" he shouted, whacking his gavel two or three more times. His thundering voice shook the rafters, and the bronze chandelier flickered. "Did I not forbid you all from passing judgment in my courtroom?"

"But she's not here to argue! She's not here to make an appearance! She's not here to speak at all! I'm the one arguing the case."

"Watch your tone, Miss Contreras, or I'll find you in contempt!"

"Actually," said Ratner, "I, too, object to your preference for Miss Dale."

"What's this, now?" cried the judge. "You take Miss Contreras' side, though she's your adversary?"

"On the contrary, I'm sure Miss Contreras expected you wouldn't judge fairly with Miss Dale sitting here."

Carlotta scoffed. "What are you saying? That I brought Christine as a ploy?"

"Why else would she be here? You said yourself she's not here to say anything. You read the Post and figured you could win with her silently by your side."

A mocking laugh was Carlotta's only reply.

Ratner was probably right. Christine wished she could disappear.

"Enough of this," Erik commanded with a dismissive wave of his arms. "We've been sidetracked. You're too concerned about Miss Dale rather than Mrs. Albrizzio. As for the evidence in the case—"

"Excuse me, _Judge_, I wasn't finished," said Ratner.

"You are _now_, Counsel. Or I'll find you in contempt."

"You must recuse unless Miss Dale leaves the courtroom."

"It's you who's leaving the courtroom, sir. You're in contempt of court." He gestured for the bailiff to assist. "Take him out of here."

Murmurs of astonishment sizzled from the gallery. Judge Delgado had never held a litigating attorney in contempt, let alone Jacob Ratner, who considered himself a model of professional conduct.

"Just a minute!" said Ratner as the bailiff took his arm. "You can't intimidate me, _Judge_—I'm still filing for your recusal."

Erik steepled his fingers against his lips and made no reply. His dark eyes seethed with anger.

"My motion's already drafted!" Ratner persisted as the bailiff led him from the room, "Have you lost your mind?"

Erik turned to his clerk. "Decision reserved. This case is adjourned."

"Now look what you've done!" Carlotta said to Christine. "I couldn't even finish."

"Me?!"

"Yes! This is your fault. Jake's in contempt only for demanding that _you_ leave—"

Erik slammed his gavel again and again until Christine's ears rang. "Miss Contreras," he said, struggling to keep his voice even, "I've had enough. You have a troubling dearth of etiquette. An absolute absence of ethics, actually—assuming it's true that you intended to unduly influence the court—And now your lack of contrition, your persistence in flouting my authority—your behavior, in short, is contemptible!"

In the gallery, gasps and protests burst from Carlotta's friends.

"Mark my words carefully, Miss Contreras," he continued. "I'll not have you in my courtroom until you learn propriety! Where's my bailiff?"

As the bailiff was with Ratner in the hallway, it fell on Erik's clerk to turn Carlotta out. Her supporters exploded into uproar as she was taken away.

Meanwhile, Christine stood at the defendant's table, caught in a whirlwind, unsure whether she should leave with Carlotta, afraid to provoke the judge's impatience. But this scene wasn't merely the consequence of Judge Delgado's infamous temper; it was too strong a coincidence that he'd ejected both of her tormentors.

Her father had promised her an angel, and here he was.

She dropped back into her chair. She wanted to fall to her knees.

The clerk who'd evicted Carlotta rushed back into the room. "Th-there's a dead body in the courtroom vestibule!"

Fresh gasps erupted from the gallery.

The judge tugged at his hair with a heavy groan. "Everyone remain calm and stay in your seats." He charged down from the bench and followed the clerk out to the vestibule.

No one stayed in their seats.

Everyone stood, rushed to pack their briefcases. Voices rose and speculated whether the body was Ratner's or the bailiff's.

A moment later Judge Delgado returned, accompanied by both his clerk and his bailiff, who was speaking into the radio clipped to one shoulder. Now Erik's face truly terrified Christine; he was not the steady judge she knew. His furious expression had fallen into fright. His hollow eyes were wide, his permanent sneer stretched taut, his large forehead in distorted furrows.

"No one leave yet," he commanded. "I'm sure the police will have questions. And please stay in your seats, if you can. We have a corpse wedged into our vestibule and his face is…" He cleared his throat. "He burned up."

The lawyers cried out in alarm. Goosebumps prickled Christine's arms.

"So I strongly recommend not taking a peek," he concluded.

Chaos erupted as everyone tried to leave.

Erik glanced at Christine, who couldn't move even if she'd wanted to; her muscles had seized. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She knew from the look on his face that there was something he wasn't telling them. There was something more, something _else_ that'd left him so disturbed. While they waited for the police, he paced in front of her table and paused to stare at the closed doors of the vestibule.

Where a dead man had materialized as though answering a court summons.


	8. Disclosure

Chapter 8: Disclosure

Erik's courtroom became a crime scene.

Caution tape crisscrossed the entrance. Gangs of cops examined the corpse, took pictures of the body and the vestibule and the layout of the hallway and courtroom, and questioned everyone. From what Christine overheard, no one in court knew the deceased. No one had seen anything unusual in the vestibule—until the body appeared.

Behind the bench, Judge Delgado gave the detective a copy of the morning's docket and tried to list everyone who'd been in court. The judge looked tired; his answers hesitant. His uneasiness reminded Christine of his anxiety the night they'd kissed. As if they'd committed a crime. _You put yourself in danger_, he'd said. _I don't know if I can protect you_. What was happening to him? And what had come over him, that he would hold two distinguished attorneys in contempt in the same case, on the same day?

She couldn't ask him in front of all these people.

She lingered for over an hour, waiting for everyone to leave. She paced the hallway. She roamed the gallery pretending she'd forgotten her purse or dropped her keys. But the cops were everywhere, and they were in no hurry.

Behind the bench, Erik's clerk said something to him that Christine couldn't hear. Erik nodded and gave a quick reply, then the clerk gathered his stack of case files and left the room through a narrow door beside the bench, which led to a back stairwell.

On impulse, she slipped through the same door while no one was looking.

To her right, the service stairs to Erik's chambers twisted into shadow. Paint vapors hung in the oppressive air. The clerk had disappeared. She crouched in the twilight beneath the stairwell and waited for Erik out of view. Only court personnel were allowed in the back halls, and if she were discovered, gossip would spread faster than an epidemic. The commotion in the courtroom rumbled faintly through the walls. Footsteps faded upstairs, echoing in her bare stairwell. With a corpse in the next room and a murderer loose, it was a frightening place to be. She squeezed her father's locket and wished for his courage.

It was at least another quarter of an hour before the door opened and Erik strode through.

"Hi," she whispered, emerging from under the stairs.

He shouted in surprise, and backed against the wall with a hand over his heart. He stared at her. Then he took a very deep breath and gave a sheepish smile. "Oh, it's you. You startled me."

His fraught expression had worsened since she'd left the courtroom. Disheveled hair hung over his forehead, and he had loosened his tie. Even the blue rose in his lapel seemed pale and wilted. Gone were his dignified composure and easy humor. He looked like he wanted to cry.

She threw her arms around him. "Erik, what's happened to you?"

"What are you talking about?" he said in a trembling voice. "You surprised me just now, that's all. I'm fine." He kissed her brow.

"No, no. You're not yourself."

He shook his head. "I warned you before. It's too dangerous to be near me now." He headed towards the staircase without looking back.

"Erik, please!" She caught his arm with both of her hands, and he turned. "Please. I'm sorry about the Post article. You were right, we—I, I need to be more careful. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen to you." She wasn't crying yet, but her voice shook as it echoed in the shadowy stairwell. "I know I shouldn't be here right now, but I need to talk to you. Please? Please don't walk away."

He sighed and stared into the gloom behind her. "Well, we can't talk here. These walls have ears."

She tightened her grip, afraid he was about to flee. "Where can we go? Your chambers?"

"With this investigation, there's a good chance someone will walk in on us."

"Someplace they won't look for you, then…?"

He paused. "No one but Judge Polini knows I have a key. But we can't take the elevator, someone might see us… We have to take the stairs."

His hand slipped from hers to hold the bannister as he mounted the staircase, and she followed. Their light footsteps echoed like repeated whispers. Piquant whiffs trailed from his rose corsage. When they reached the next landing, he continued climbing. He kept going after the next flight of stairs, and the one after that. By the time they reached the top, her legs were burning. A thick, metal door blocked their path. She leaned against the wall to catch her breath while he fished a set of keys from his pocket. Then he unlocked the door, it creaked open, and glorious sunlight spilled into the stairwell. They walked out onto the roof.

The Bronx stretched from under her feet in all directions. Yankee Stadium bloomed directly ahead of them, so close she could see the bases. Beyond slept clusters of tall, brick tenements whose windows glowed in the noontime sun. Train tracks crisscrossed the neighborhood and drew her eyes to the horizon, where the Harlem River glittered.

Erik's dark eyes scanned the empty rooftop and the roofs of the neighboring buildings. "Thank God you weren't fired over that Post article," he said and leaned his back against the parapet with his hands behind him. A breeze lifted his tousled hair and shook beads of perspiration from his forehead. "But Frank's absurd to send you here as _silent co-counsel_. For what? Didn't he—"

"Erik. _Please_ tell me what's going on. I've never seen you this way."

He turned to watch an elevated train dive underground on its way into Manhattan. "Of the two of you, Ms. Contreras should have been silent. You're the better professional. She lacks your grace. Your perception. Your courtesy—"

"Nevermind that." She turned his shoulders so he had to face her. "Why was a man murdered in your vestibule?"

His face clouded in a grim expression. "He was connected to me. Actually, he was connected to us both."

"You knew him?" Her pulse raced; something wasn't right. "I thought nobody knew who he was. How could—I thought no one could even _recognize_ who he was."

"He had a press pass clipped to his shirt pocket—" he paused.

She tugged her locket along its chain. "…And?"

"God help us, Christine…" He released a shaky breath. "He was the reporter who wrote our scandalous article."

"Huh?... You mean Joe Beck—"

"Shhh! Don't… don't say his name." He raised a long, skeletal finger to her lips. "Never speak the names of the dead until you've taken the proper precautions."

A chill crawled up her spine, despite the sunbeams dazzling her eyes. Her judge was acting very strange, raising more questions than answers. "But… what was he doing at your courtroom? Following up?"

"You're a relentless cross-examiner," he muttered. "I don't know."

It didn't make sense. Erik had only a tangential connection to Becket; why was he falling apart? "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"I've said enough. The more you're involved—"

"I'm already involved, whether we like it or not!"

"I realize that, but I don't want to pull you into this any further." Again he scanned the rooftop behind her, confirming that they were not overheard. They were alone, but he dropped his voice nevertheless. "Look, I spoke with him last week. The same morning his article came out. I called him and demanded he name his source. As you can guess, he refused to tell me anything. I thought I could subpoena it out of him. Jake Ratner's motion would've been the perfect opportunity—"

"But Jake's probably the source! Remember, at the Ortiz hearing, when he said you were favoring me? And he made inappropriate comments at Judge Polini's reception, like asking if I'm going to bang your gavel. He must have seen us afterwards."

"That's an interesting theory. I hadn't thought of that." He pressed his fingers against his dark lips as though he were praying. "It would explain some of what happened this morning… But he was in the courtroom with us; he would've needed an accomplice to deal with the reporter. Unless it happened before he came in, and no one noticed… But probably not."

"Then who do _you_ think is behind it?"

He scowled at her. "You're crossing the line, Christine. Let me handle it. For your own sake, stay out of this—"

"Erik," she cried, exasperated and terrified, "Someone obviously spied on me that night and reported rumors to the press, rumors which ruined my reputation and probably my career, and now the journalist who published those rumors has been killed—murdered and mutilated under this roof, probably _while I was in the next room_. You can 'handle this' however you want to, but someone is following me, ruining me, and now killing—"

"It's not about you. Not directly. I'm the target."

"Why? because you're the big judge that everyone's after? What makes you so sure?"

"No, it's not like that—" He paused again and cocked his head to listen while he watched the space behind her. He brushed past her, strode back to the stairwell. They had closed the door behind them; he opened it and peered down. Finding nothing, he closed the door and returned to her. Searched the surrounding rooftops. He pulled her away from the parapet, and into the shadows of the wall by the door to the staircase, so they would not be seen. Finally he whispered, "I'm being blackmailed."

She gasped.

"Revenge," he explained with a sad smile. "Unprovoked, of course. His name is Nasr Khan. Once upon a time he was an NYPD detective. Until he was caught taking bribes. I presided over his trial, but because we were friends, I was expected to recuse. I refused, and he took it personally. That was a decade ago, but he reminded me of it again, just after your hearing last week. Nasr knew I had feelings for you—this was before I met you outside the reception—and he basically harassed me, threatened to destroy… destroy my reputation if I didn't recuse from your cases. That's why I told you I needed to work something out before we could… get together. I guess I should have just told you what was going on. He must've seen us in the park later that night."

"You think he killed Beck—I mean, killed the reporter—to shut him up?"

He shrugged his shoulders all the way up to his ears. "It's hard to imagine. Nasr never killed anyone. I don't have enough evidence yet. I don't have _any_, to be honest. Anyway," he whispered, lowering his eyes, "now you know everything. I've tarnished your pristine reputation. Jeopardized your career. And your life—Christine…" He looked her dead in the eyes. "You have to leave me."

She blinked. "But—"

"Trust me. You need to stay away."

"Erik—"

"If your own welfare doesn't concern you, think what your clients might lose if something happened to you. What about your mission? What would become of our Bronx, hmm? Your work is more important than what's happening with me."

"Y-You really believe that?"

"I do. Please go, before my greed changes my mind."

She didn't move.

"_Mira, corazón_." He lifted her chin so she had to look at his face. Bright sunshine threw his twisted features into sharp relief and hid his goblin eyes in deep shadow. "Look at me in daylight. Take my word for it, this isn't improving with age. Why risk disbarment or even death for someone to whom you can't possibly be attracted?"

She had no words for an apt reply.

Instead, she leaned forward and answered with a kiss.

His breath caught. Before he could retreat, she trapped his jaw between her hands. Brushed her tongue between his lips until they parted for her. He exhaled a strangled growl and tilted his head to slide his own warm, thick tongue against hers. She moaned right into his mouth, and his body trembled in response. He pulled her closer, fisted his fingers in her hair.

Gouges marred the inside of his cheeks and on the roof of his mouth—surgical scars like trenches in a bombed-out battlefield in his war against fate. A crusade against his own self and the world at large; yet on his breath she tasted all his noble proclamations, his magistrate's mercy, his vigilante verdicts speaking truth to power that a lesser man would have swallowed instead.

She purred deep in her throat. Savored his strangeness until she thought she would faint. Then, gasping for air, she released him and opened her eyes.

His breathing was ragged, his dusky lips swollen, his eyes dark with desire. She had crushed his corsage. His tiepin was caught on the chain of her locket, and his tie dangled between their shaking bodies.

It was a long time before either of them had enough air to speak. Even longer before they could form complete sentences.

"… I… I have to get back to court," he finally said, his voice thick and sultry. He freed his tiepin from her locket with fumbling fingers. "They're probably wondering where I am."

"Let me see you again."

He closed his eyes. "Right now, I still need that adjournment. I need you safe." He kissed her hand, and his heat lingered on her skin.

He turned away and faced the Manhattan skyline as he adjusted his suit, fixed his collar, and repaired his corsage. He smoothed his riotous hair with shaking hands.

When he turned back around, he was her intimidating jurist once more.

"I'm going downstairs. Wait here a few minutes then take the elevator. Be careful. And… Christine, I swear, someday—"

He tore himself away. The door closed behind him with a drawn-out groan.

She exhaled a groan of her own. She still didn't even have his phone number.


	9. Provisional Remedies

Chapter 9: Provisional Remedies

Delgado had forgotten why the hell he'd left his courtroom. Swapping spit can do that to you. He was dazed. His ears and neck were hot. He was grinning like a fool, and he felt both mighty and depraved—he'd nearly ravished Christine on the courthouse roof. Her hot, sexy little noises while exploring his unusual dental work had undone him. It'd been the most irresistible, addictive, euphoric time he'd ever spent at work.

He was in trouble.

Things were now very complicated. A dangerous corpse waited for him downstairs. He'd only known Becket from their one useless phone call, and now had just a charred face to put to the journalist's petulant voice. A face which horrified Delgado for many reasons. The nose (what was left of it) was blackened, flesh crinkled like overcooked meat. The eyes had melted. The lips had burned away, and the exposed teeth jutted outward at crazy angles as though the fire had erupted _inside_ the victim—or at least that was Delgado's conjecture. Leave it to the police to confirm what had happened. _The dead speak their secrets_, the detective had told him before he'd gone upstairs.

_If only you knew, Detective._

Unbeknownst to the police, Delgado could make the dead reporter disclose more than he'd been willing to say while alive. _Who was your source? Who killed you? Why?_ But this slaughter was too reminiscent of Delgado's foul past. It was as though Khan (or Ratner, or some still-anonymous person) was either sending a message or trying to manipulate him. He was cornered, without knowing why or by whom or what the hell he was going to do about it. And he suspected that it all ensued from his blossoming relationship with Christine—and from the imminent crossing of Saturn into Scorpio.

These were his deliberations until he reached his courtroom door. His fingers curled around the doorknob before he suddenly remembered why he'd left. The detective had asked for the day's case sheets, and Delgado had left to print them from his chambers but had run into Christine.

He spun on his heels and raced to his chambers.

He found Judge Maxwell waiting for him inside, his hands on his hips and his legs slightly apart like a boxer who'd just won his match. It would've been comical, a big man posing like that in a suit and tie—except for the death glare he fired at Delgado.

"Where the hell were you?" he demanded.

"In the courtroom; I had hearings this morning."

"Oh really. I was just down there. Walked into a police investigation. Did you think I wouldn't find out?"

Delgado logged into his computer and began printing a stack of pages listing case names, appearance dates, and attorneys' contacts. "Haven't had the chance to call you."

"Because you had to come up here and print these things."

"…Right…"

"Yeah, that's what the detective said you were doing," said Maxwell, "so ten minutes ago I came up here, and you were nowhere to be found."

He leered at Delgado as though he knew every secret. Bitter acid simmered in Delgado's gut.

"Got lost, Erik?"

"I…" Delgado swallowed the bile and scowled at his superior. "I was in the bathroom. Do you need a report on whether I used the urinal or the toilet, _Jefe_?"

Maxwell's face twisted in disgust.

Someone knocked on the opened door, and both judges turned to find the police detective staring nervously at Delgado's boutonnière.

"Oh, good! Detective," said Delgado to the policeman, "this is the Bronx Administrative Judge, Arnold Maxwell. I think he wants a briefing as soon as possible."

"Tomorrow morning, in my office," Maxwell added.

The detective nodded, tucked Delgado's case sheets under his arm, and fled.

Maxwell frowned at Delgado again. "Erik, I'm not here about the murder. And I really don't care how long you take for Number One or Number Two. People are complaining that you threw two very distinguished, very connected attorneys out of your courtroom this morning."

"So what if they're connected? They were in contempt."

"I was told that you punished them for questioning your neutrality with that Defense Project lawyer, Christine Dale—"

"They disrupted proceedings! It's not about the substance or merit of their objections." Delgado crossed his arms. "And what does it matter that Miss Dale lacks their connections? that she's not as distinguished? Have you ever heard her argue a case?" Anger flared on his face. "She's well-versed in the law. She's articulate. She just hasn't had as many years to develop connections and distinctions and accolades. At least her deportment is appropriate, unlike those other two."

Astonished at his tirade, Maxwell gaped at him. "Whatever happened, Jake Ratner is filing for your recusal. He even requested an investigation from the Commission on Judicial Conduct."

Delgado started. Few words plague a judge more than _Commission on Judicial Conduct_. Maybe _jailbreak_ is the only phrase more terrifying. Or _mandatory retirement_. The commission would judge his character. It could take him off the bench permanently.

"Wait—Arnold, wait a minute." Delgado licked his lips. "What would they investigate? Is this about the Post? They think I'm taking erotic bribes?"

"The Post may be part of it, but they'll look closely at your transcripts, too. You'll make things harder for yourself if you don't recuse. Just do what's right, Erik."

* * *

Glowing candlelight reflected on the window beside Christine. She could just make out Raoul's features on the glass, while silhouetted pedestrians walked through his ghostly reflection. She wondered whether Erik was dining home alone.

"Christine? are you alright?" said Raoul. "I asked if you have anything to add to the list."

"Oh."

On the white silk tablecloth between them was her typed list of repairs for the office, with Raoul's estimated costs handwritten in the margins. He'd asked her to include everything she could wish for, from new carpet to new copy machine.

The door opened behind him, and in that momentary slice of time, she imagined Erik entering the restaurant with his soft step, his eyes shining with delight upon finding her there…

Two old ladies entered and approached the maître d'.

Christine sighed. She was in an upscale restaurant in Manhattan, miles away from the Bronx. She wasn't likely to see Erik here. But the romantic atmosphere—soft piano music, quiet candlelight, and fashionable patrons—seemed to be only awaiting his presence, like a courtroom arrayed with lawyers and bailiff and stenographer, ready for the judge.

"Christine?"

"Sorry." She focused on the list. "Your estimate for the computers is too high. Corporations sell us their old ones for half price when they upgrade."

"Why buy used? You said your clients deserve the best."

"I said they deserve a functioning office. With your estimates, we're way over budget."

"Don't worry about that. I'll handle it." He speared salmon with his fork and chewed.

She ground her teeth. Did _every_ man have to use that line on her? "Look, buying the latest and greatest isn't cost-effective for our office. It's just not worth the extra money. There's better ways we can use it."

"Point taken," he grumbled. He pulled a fountain pen from inside his jacket and corrected the cost of the computers. "Then I suppose that fresh coat of paint should just come from Home Depot?"

Outside, a man with a dark suit and graying hair hailed a cab. He turned to look up the avenue, and his red rose corsage seized Christine's heart.

"Christine? The paint?"

A taxi pulled to the curb, and in its bright headlights she saw clearly that the man wasn't Erik.

"Hey," Raoul turned her face from the window. "You're distracted this evening. You've hardly eaten... Is it the murder? You're scared, aren't you?"

She batted his hand away and poked her fork at her calamari. "I grew up in the Bronx during the crack craze, remember? I'm not scared. And I've seen burned bodies before; Dad dealt with lots of pyromaniacs. I'm just… trying to figure it out." She nibbled her lower lip as her eyes swept the room again.

The restaurant was full of couples: an elderly pair was celebrating their golden anniversary in style, two yuppies talked about their kids, and an interracial couple sat gazing into each other's eyes. A man with gray eyes was holding his boyfriend's hand for their entire meal. Another couple gently kissed in the corner booth.

And the man who wasn't here, the man no one wanted to look at, was the only man Christine wanted to see. Had she lost her mind, that she was excited by his profusion of scars so jagged and startling and real, and by the way his face mangled and bulged when he talked, and by the unnatural depths of his dark, dark eyes? It was a mystery as confounding and as critical as the identity of the Post-tipping murderer.

"I just don't know how it all connects," she said aloud.

"What are you talking about?"

"Judge Delgado said the victim—"

"Judge Delgado!" Raoul's fork and knife clattered onto his plate. "Talking to him isn't a good idea right now, Christine. Didn't I warn you about the press?"

"The press is _dead_, Raoul, and I might be next!"

Several heads turned. Raoul nodded to them and apologized.

"This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about," he hissed at her. "Stop causing spectacles! Like it or not, you have to remember you're in the public eye."

"I haven't caused any spectacles! I didn't _ask_ the Post to write about me, _I_ didn't murder anyone—I was a _silent_ co-counsel at that hearing last week. I'm trying to find out who's causing the 'spectacles.' Or am I just supposed sit quietly and wait to be killed?"

"You're not in any danger. Just let it go." He lifted his glass of wine. "I thought you said you weren't afraid."

"It's just weird and… creepy that the reporter's body was shoved into the vestibule while I was in the next room."

And Erik's strange behavior—evading her questions while also showing alarming concern for her safety—had convinced her that she may really be in danger. But from what? More was going on than what he'd divulged, and she'd waited long enough for answers. A week had passed since the Albrizzio disaster. She hadn't heard from him, but had heard _of_ him: She knew that both Carlotta and Ratner had complained to Judge Maxwell about Erik, Ratner had filed his motion for Erik's recusal, and Erik had been in the news, since he was cooperating with the murder investigation. But she'd heard nothing more about Nasr Khan.

She would have to search for answers herself. But where to start? She'd already googled the name and had come up empty. Could she investigate the dead reporter without drawing suspicion?

"Didn't Phillippe have problems with the press?" she asked casually, returning to her dinner. "I bet he didn't just lay low. He took action, didn't he? There must be something that I can do."

Raoul sighed. "His situation was more serious than yours... Although he was rich, he was never famous until he made donations to an opera house. Suddenly rumors flew that he was sleeping with one of the ballet dancers, and that the supposed relationship influenced his transactions for his company. Investors demanded that he resign… You're right, he didn't just 'lay low.' He hired a private investigator. It turned out some investors had _staged_ the controversy, to make him appear incompetent so that they could execute a take-over."

"Did the P.I. trace the rumors?"

"Yep. They came from within the company."

She would enjoy the meal after all. "Could this investigator do the same for me?"

He was already reaching into his jacket for his phone. "One way to find out."


	10. Summary Judgment

Chapter 10: Summary Judgment

Saturn entered Scorpio's influence. A few weeks after Delgado discovered Becket's corpse, sensations both familiar and unnerving woke him from his midnight slumber like a blast of foul air from an open window. Jolted awake, his skin crawling and his hairs on end, he threw off the covers and left the bed. He didn't bother flipping on a light. He slunk into a spare room and all but tore the curtain aside, then frowned at the sky.

The night was clear and quiet, and a few winking jets crossed the heavens towards LaGuardia Airport. His practiced eye identified Scorpius, the snaking constellation with the bright star Antares at its head. Another pinpoint of light seemed to be caught in the scorpion's deadly claws. To be sure, he got his glasses and bent over his reflecting telescope by the window. After adjusting the direction and focus, he beheld what looked like a flying saucer, or a glowing orb sliced through by a disc of light—Saturn, wearing her rings.

It shouldn't matter, not anymore. His college years and the Midnight Hours at the Masonic Temple were ancient history. Yet the night was unnaturally still; he couldn't remember a Bronx night this quiet.

When his doorbell rang, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

The doorbell rang again.

_Khan_. Delgado raced back to his bedroom and got his Glock pistol from the drawer by his bed. He hadn't carried it since his transfer from criminal court to civil many years ago. It felt unusually heavy in his hand—and lethal—but he hurried to his front door.

Christine was such an unexpected visitor on his doorstep in the middle of the night that he thought he was still dreaming. When he opened the door, she smiled at him repentantly.

He could only stare.

"Sorry to wake you," she whispered. "I don't have your phone number and didn't know how else to contact you. I couldn't trust the mail. I have information about your friend Mr. Khan."

"Uh..." He struggled to focus despite the radio static in his brain. "Yes. Come in, come in. _Bienvenida_." He hid the gun in his bathrobe pocket before moving aside.

She glided into the house and rewarded him with a chaste kiss on his cheek. He re-locked the door as she appraised his dark foyer and his late mother's furniture.

He still hadn't turned on any lights. The moonlight transformed her blonde tresses into tinsel and her deep blue eyes into glowing sapphires. A fantasy crossed his mind, of ending the night with her upstairs in his bed, calling his name in shivered whispers as he nailed her into next week—but her presence here, on the very night Saturn entered Scorpio, was inadvisable.

But he didn't want to dismiss her. Not yet.

"No one knows I'm here," she said. "The neighborhood's asleep. And I took the bus to the library and walked from there." She pulled a paper from her purse and passed it to him. "I thought you'd want help finding Mr. Khan, so I hired a private investigator. That's a short list of Khan's recent phone numbers and addresses. The P.I.'s still working to confirm that Khan's the one who tipped off the Post."

"And the investigator gave you _my_ address as well?" he asked as he held the paper by a window to catch the moonlight. His glasses were in his pocket with the Glock, but he made out a comprehensive list that included sources and dates of activity.

"No, I found that myself. Just searched the city's registrar." Her lips curled in a playful smile. "You signed your mortgage the same way you sign your court orders."

"Oh." To him, she seemed remarkably at home standing in his dark foyer. "Christine, you have the useful mind of a judge's wife."

_Oh, hell_. Was his compliment chauvinist? Definitely presumptuous.

Even in the weak light, he saw her blush and lower her eyes.

"Sorry. I… I'm a little, um…" He cleared his throat. "Still half-asleep. D-Do you mind… could you stay awhile? Have some coffee?" His heart hammered in his chest. He hoped to Heaven that she would accept; he prayed to God for her to leave. His mind still itched as though crawling with ants. This was not the night for romance.

"Maybe I should," she said, checking her watch. "The next bus doesn't leave for another forty minutes anyway, and it only took me like ten to walk from the library."

"Don't even think of taking another bus at this hour," he said as he led her to the kitchen and finally turned on the light. "I'll drive."

"I just figured this way no one would know I was here."

"Good thinking, but don't forget your own safety." Feeling more relaxed now that they weren't in the dark, he filled the coffee machine reservoir and opened the cabinet for a fresh filter. "So how much do I owe this private investigator?"

"Nothing." She leaned on his counter. "A guy I know paid."

"Wha—" He cleared his throat again. It was very dry. "Why is he doing me this favor?"

"Actually, he didn't do it for you. I just told him that Mr. Khan might have information about… about the Post article. He did it as a favor for _me_."

Jealousy hit him so hard and so sudden that his hand shook as he measured the coffee grounds. "This wouldn't be the same _muchacho_ donating money to your organization, would it?"

"We're old friends, Erik. He wants to support my career in whatever way he can. His brother had some bad press, so he already had a resource."

He scowled at the coffee can.

She touched his arm, sending sweet shivers down his spine. "I just wanted to help."

"I know." He sighed. "Thank you. I do appreciate the list." He finished preparing the machine and turned it on. "Coffee will be ready in a few minutes. Cream and sugar?"

"Both. And may I use your bathroom while we wait?"

"_Estás en tu casa_," he replied, smiling. "It's upstairs to the left. Shall I show you?"

She was already heading for the stairs. "Don't worry, I'll find it."

So he sat in his kitchen, wearing his slippers and his spectacles and reading Christine's list while the gurgling coffee filled the room with its alluring aroma. Faint light already painted the sky outside his kitchen window. An early-rising sparrow tuned up for a solitary song.

"Hey, it's almost morning," he called to her. "Why not stay for breakfast?"

"No, don't trouble yourself."

_Her voice didn't come from the bathroom_. He jerked as though sliced by a cold razor. He hadn't closed the door to his spare bedroom, and he hadn't closed the curtain after stargazing. With the full moon, she'd see everything in that room.

His heart in his throat, he took the stairs two at a time and flew down the hall.

He found her standing in the center of the spare room, staring at the enormous black-and-white portrait on the wall. The pale pre-dawn fell on the photograph and danced over the young bride and her _mantilla_ as though she were alive. Christine's fingers tightened over her locket as she studied the other woman; the graceful curve of her jaw, the noble slope of her nose, and the modest arc of her brows and her smile.

Delgado held his breath. As long as her attention stayed focused on the portrait, she wouldn't notice anything else about the room. He might even be able to coax her downstairs for breakfast before—

"Erik, what _is_ all this?" Her eyes had already wandered to his mother's console table beneath the picture. The only furniture in the room. The swelling light fell upon the tabletop and his hoard of white roses and candle stubs—and his brazier, still offering a pool of fine ashes.

"Um… Coffee's ready," he said. "Can I make you some eggs?"

She stepped backwards and released her locket as she noticed the markings etched deep into his parquet floor, surrounding her in a large circle. Dawn broke, and the sun's red, traitorous rays illuminated the runes that Delgado had engraved inside the ring: the astronomical glyphs for the sun and planets, the zodiac, the cardinal directions, the pentagrams, and the medieval incantations that he'd learned long before studying law.

Christine bit her lip and turned to him with such confusion and suffering in her dear eyes that his heart screamed in his chest. He'd never been more disgusted with himself.

"Black magic," she whispered in a toneless voice. One hand covered her stomach as though she were sick. "That—It's actually true?"

He swallowed. Better to lie to her. The truth would frighten her away forever.

… But he didn't have it in him. "Christine, I'm sorry… so sorry—"

"God, Erik!" Her face crumpled in grief. "An actual sorcerer?! It's all true then? Devil worship? Hypnotism?"

_What?_ "No, no. None of that—"

"And my feelings—You did this!—Controlled my mind—and the inappropriate dreams…"

He blinked. _Inappropriate dreams?_ "I can't even control my _own_ feelings. I never imagined controlling yours. And if I could master other's minds, do you think I'd let them see me as I am?"

She retreated from the circle as though it were a swarm of rats. "All this time—I was only under your spell!"

He turned her shoulders as she tried to leave the room. "You've got that backwards! It's _you_, Christine… _you_ bewitch _me_. No matter my authority in court, I'm utterly powerless—"

She stormed down the hallway, and he followed.

"Wait! Listen! I swear to God I have no control over the living—I mean, except for being a judge."

"Then what is that?" she swept her arm back towards the terrible room.

"It's a mistake," he groaned. "I'll pay for eternity… Oh, my Portia, if only you could release me from this loathsome—"

"That's not an answer!"

He closed his eyes. "It's a Circle of Power. It's used for… for summoning."

"Oh, my God!" She covered her face with her hands and ran down the stairs.

"Wait! Wait, let me explain!" He followed on her heels. "Delay judgement until I state my case! I've always given you that courtesy."

He seized her arm when they reached the front door, and she cowered with wide eyes, afraid he would strike her. Delgado thought he might throw up.

"Please, listen to me," he cried. "What you just saw, that isn't who I am anymore."

"I don't even know you!" She pried her arm from his grasp, turned the lock, and flung open the door. "And now I know what happened to Joe Becket!"

The door slammed in his face.

He opened it again, but with her black suit, she was virtually invisible. "Christine!" he shouted, not caring about the neighbors. "Christine, come back!" He could hear the tears in his own voice. "_Please_ come back!"

She was gone.

But while he ran into the dark street, visions of her passed before his eyes. Here and there in the shadows, he thought he caught the play of sunrise on her hair, on her pale throat, on her slender, curling fingers.

"Christine!"

His wide eyes blinked and strained. He held his breath. Any minute he hoped to hear her returning footsteps. He waited, cemented to the sidewalk like a stone gargoyle gaping from a rooftop. In the sickening stillness, he could hear cars passing on the expressway. A distant siren. A crying infant.

A light came on in his neighbor's house, and Delgado reluctantly retreated indoors. Before closing the door, he cast a final glance at the last place he'd seen her.

He couldn't bring himself to turn the lock.

The kitchen light was still on, the lone sparrow continued its melancholy song outside the window, and the room smelled of dark roast coffee. Delgado poured a cup with clumsy, leaden limbs, and sank into the chair at his kitchen table. Christine's list still lay on his late mother's tablecloth: cornflowers on a cream-colored backdrop. Their surreal color reminded him of the blue-eyed beauty who'd just been in the room. Of the joy in those eyes when she'd come to his court for the Albrizzio hearing. Of the languid desire in those eyes after kissing him so thoroughly. Nothing on Earth was more divine.

Out of habit, he interlaced his fingers and rested them on his lips—which only reminded him of how transported he'd felt kissing Christine.

He lifted his mug with trembling fingers, held it motionless before his mouth. This bitterness wouldn't do! She was gone. Nothing he could do would bring her back, though he'd happily lay down his life, sell his soul (if he hasn't lost it already), even forfeit his judicial appointment. Because what good was power if he couldn't have what he wanted? What good public respect, if _she_ disdained? What good his love for justice, if he couldn't also love _her_?

In a single evening, his life had lost all meaning.

_Ugly Erik, _hissed a voice.

Delgado started, and hot coffee bit his knuckles. He turned around, taking in his quiet kitchen. He was alone. His refrigerator hummed. Or was that only in his mind?

_Freak, what would your mother say?_

He dropped the mug onto the table and covered his ears. His entire body was vibrating, or maybe he was just shaking. Too late, he thought of retreating to the safety of his circle of power. Before he could move, more voices joined the first.

_Sinner!_

_Hypocrite!_

_LYING JUDGE!_

Their shrieks filled his mind; male voices, female voices, some elderly, some only children. Like Becket, they were all dead. With his hands still covering his ears, Delgado thrashed around his kitchen, babbling nonsense at the voices in his head.

_Distorted face to match his twisted heart!_

_Not fit to hold a candle to her!_

Maniacal laughter boiled up from the judge's throat, growing louder with his anger and despair. Soon he both cried and cackled as he writhed on the floor like a blind worm.

Darkness bled from his mouth and filled the room. It doused the lights and plunged him once again into night. The voices continued clamoring. His mind slipped. He laughed and sobbed as the darkness grew and seeped out of his house. It blanketed the neighborhood. Eclipsed the setting moon and the rising sun. Soon it spread over the entire Bronx, from the Hudson to the East River and from Westchester County to Manhattan. Early commuters stopped in panic as their headlights suddenly went out, along with the streetlights and traffic lights.

Delgado knew nothing. He had passed out on his kitchen floor.


	11. Damages

Chapter 11: Damages

A public bus screamed to a halt and opened its doors to a tearful, trembling Christine. She'd spent the last fifteen minutes pacing in front of the locked library, alone. No matter which way she turned, she couldn't escape the truth. She was never really in love with Judge Delgado. An enchantment had made her his puppet. That explained why she'd found his ugliness so seductive. Why her attraction had bordered on obsession. Why she'd thrown herself at a deformed, old man. She'd never fallen so hard before—not even for the handsome Raoul deChagny. Now she understood. It had to have been his sorcery.

By the time she climbed onto the bus and paid her fare, she was considering the broader scope of Delgado's manipulations. Because of him, she'd lied to her boss and colleagues. She'd violated the most basic principles of ethics. She'd exploited Raoul's affections in order to serve a dishonest man. She'd been a fool. And now… Now it was clear that Delgado had murdered the reporter in sadistic revenge for having exposed his whole scheme. And by hiding her relationship with Delgado, Christine was his accomplice. He would soon want to silence her as well—

With that thought, the world fell into total darkness.

Her heart thudded wildly. The other passengers murmured in alarm. The bus driver pulled to the curb. Outside in the void, a loud crash resounded as vehicles collided. Horns blared. People shouted.

Christine's frantic fingers clutched for her father's locket… but it was gone! She ran her fingers over her collar bones, and the back of her neck—the chain must have broken! She ran her hands over the front of her blouse, in case the locket had fallen into her bra or down her shirt. She felt across the grimy seat, and along the filthy floor of the bus. Gone! It must have fallen when she escaped from Delgado! Her locket, with her father's picture… It was like losing her father all over again, but even more suddenly and unexpectedly. Her world collapsed; she was utterly alone, helpless, and without solace.

She felt like she was falling, dropping into an abyss. Whether her eyes were opened or closed, she saw nothing. She knew she was succumbing to hysteria.

Before losing all composure, she dug into her purse for her phone and dialed blindly, from memory.

"Christine?" answered a groggy Raoul. "It's five o'clock in the morning—"

"Something's happened!" she cried breathlessly. "Look outside!"

"…What are you talking about? I don't see anything."

"Exactly!"

"Huh?"

Other passengers were using their phones, too. She could hear their panicked conversations. Sirens screamed somewhere close, but no flashing red-and-blue lights cut through the gloaming.

"Everything's dark!" she cried. "_No one_ can see anything!"

"Uh… Manhattan isn't dark. At least, not where I am. Maybe there's a blackout up by you?"

"I can't even see inside the bus! I can't even see my own phone! It's Delgado—it's a spell!"

"What? You're not making any sense."

The blackness buried her like a tomb. She fought for air, struggled to keep her voice even. "I'm in a bus, but I can't see. No one can. The driver had to pull over. His headlights aren't working either. There are accidents on—"

"A bus at this hour? Are you sure you weren't dreaming?"

"I wish I was!" Her voice broke, and she shuddered with sobs. "Oh, God! I wish I could wake from this nightmare!"

"OK, don't be afraid. I'm coming to get you. Can you tell me where you are?"

"I—um—I'm…" Her chest hurt. She forced herself to breathe. "I'm on—on the Bx21, just under the Bronx River Parkway. Raoul, I'm frightened…" She bit her lip against another desperate wail.

"I'm coming."

* * *

Delgado felt like he fell out of one dream and into another. Beneath him was a hard floor instead of his soft bed. Terrible memories flooded his mind: of Christine leaving, of the voices, of his physical response to the sign in the stars… He opened his eyes, but instead of seeing his kitchen tiles, he recognized his parquet floor, his head at the apex of the pentacle in his magic circle. Weak light from an overcast sky had crept through his open curtains to lay cold across his face.

Groaning, he rose onto his elbows and tried to sit up. He had a splitting headache, his joints ached and his stomach lurched as though he'd spent the night drinking.

When his head stopped spinning, he realized that he wasn't alone.

A man sat cross-legged by his feet. His skin was tanned like leather, his nose beaked like a parrot, and his startling eyes a pale green like jade. Despite his age, his thinning hair was still black. Delgado hadn't seen Nasr Khan in ten years, but apparently he'd maintained his muscle tone while in prison through disciplined exercise.

The judge drew back his legs and made to rise. "You son of a bitch—"

"Calm down, Erik—"

"What is it you want?" He struggled to stand, swayed on his feet. "Money? A mistrial? What will stop this blood bath?"

"What are you talking about?" Khan rose, too, and caught him before he fell back onto the floor. "What happened to you this morning? I mean total darkness, without losing electricity! The alarm on my cell phone rang, but the display was out. None of the lights in my apartment worked. My refrigerator was running, but when I opened the door, no light—"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Probably not. You were passed out."

"How di—"

"Listen, I knew that kind of creepy shit had to be your fault, especially since Saturn had entered Scorpio. I was right about that, wasn't I?"

Delgado didn't respond. His skin was crawling again.

"I went to check on you, found your door unlocked, your body on the kitchen floor. I thought you were dead! You blinded the entire borough."

The judge pushed Khan's arms aside and stumbled to the light switch. Flicked the lights on and off as he leaned against the wall for support.

"The lights work," he said.

"Yeah, _now_ they do. They came back the minute I got you into the circle."

Delgado blinked. "What—How did you get me up the… Did you carry me?"

"Well, I sorta... dragged you up the stairs."

"How did you even know about the circle?" _Have you broken into my house before?_

"I didn't. Not at first. I was trying to find out what happened and had a look around. Oh, and I found this by the stairs." From the pocket of his chinos, Khan fished out a heavy locket the size of a pocket watch and passed it to Delgado. "Isn't that Miss Dale's?"

_Christine's locket!_

Delgado had always wondered what treasure it contained, that she kept forever by her breast and held like a lodestone in times of need. He opened it and found the portrait of a man in his late forties, wearing the uniform of an appointed fire marshal. The judge's jealousy flared—but something in the man's eyes arrested him. He pulled out his glasses and looked closer. Christine's lovely, profound eyes stared back at him. Here, then, was her father whom she'd lost last year. His death had probably crushed her in an unending loneliness that Delgado knew well.

Khan waited patiently.

Delgado turned to him and sighed. "Still the detective, I see. You could have finished me."

"_Finish_ you? Erik, we're friends!" Khan exclaimed, with no trace of irony.

"Some friendship! You slandered me to the Post, murdered the reporter—"

"Whoa, hold on. I'd have given that locket to the authorities if I was trying to ruin you. And your pistol's still in your pocket. I've got nothing to do with the Post... Though, I wish I could take credit for that genius story about you kissing Miss Dale and all that—Excuse me, I mean _passionately_ kissing." Khan snorted. "As if you even know how!"

"You expect me to believe that? You called me that same day! Said I was paying too much attention to Chri—to Miss Dale."

"All to make you to recuse!"

"_¡Y una mierda!_" Delgado turned his back and stormed down the hall to his bathroom, still reeling like a drunkard.

Khan followed. "Erik, you're making a fool of yourself. You _do_ favor Miss Dale. It's very obvious, but you don't even realize how much you care for her. You're losing your reputation, and if this keeps up, you'll lose your job—just like I lost mine. Unless you recuse. You wouldn't listen to reason. I had to resort to extortion."

Delgado ran cold water in the sink and splashed his face. Pulled a towel off the ring and dried his hands. So far, Nasr Khan was looking less like a dream and more like an unfortunate reality. _And_ _he wasn't the Post's source_. "But if you didn't see us, then who—"

He shut his mouth. Scrubbed his face with the towel.

"…Yes?" Khan pulled the towel away.

"Uh…" Delgado cleared his throat. His ears were uncomfortably warm. "Nevermind."

"No, no. Go on," Khan teased. "Are you trying to say… You really kissed her?"

"It's none of your business." The judge tried not to look smug.

"Taking the Fifth Amendment? Only the guilty refuse to talk, Erik."

"You said yourself I wouldn't know how to kiss... passionately," he replied, unable to keep from grinning. He took the towel from Khan and replaced it on its ring. "And even if I had that talent, what woman would explore it?"

"I can't imagine! Miss Dale let your ugly lips…? She didn't faint? Didn't slap you?"

"You're assuming I initiated."

"What! Okay, that's impressive, but it still creates a huge conflict of interest."

"It might have," he sighed, "but not anymore. Chri—Miss Dale—Christine. She found out about—" he lowered his voice, "—about the Midnight Hours."

"How?! _I_ didn't tell her!"

"She was here last night—Well, I don't mean like that! I mean—she just dropped by to give me some information. At, um, around three or four in the morning—"

"Ah. That list that's on your kitchen table?"

"Yeah. We thought you were the one who'd tipped off then murdered the reporter. Anyway, that was before she found that room." He led Khan down the stairs. "She was out the door before I could explain."

He shuffled to his living room and sank into the wingback chair by the window. Even the bleak, morning light was a welcome respite from his dark deliberations.

Khan sat beside him. "Sorry, friend."

"Believe me, so am I."

"If I can get her to come around, _then_ will you recuse?"

He shook his head. "Now she thinks _I_ killed the reporter. She thinks I hypnotized her into having feelings for me. She thinks I worship the Devil."

"But she doesn't think you're ugly."

"You don't know that."

"Well, she kissed you."

"She's obviously reconsidering that action." The judge closed his eyes, raked back his hair. Maybe it was better this way. He'd almost ruined her reputation. Practically destroyed her career. She didn't need him; she should be with a man her own age. Delgado probably didn't have many years left, and anyway most nights he had to work late. Nor could he take her out—Outside was always the press, the disgusted stares… people who wanted him dead. "There's nothing I can give her," he said aloud. "No reason for me to recuse. We're just not meant to be."

"You don't really feel—"

"It doesn't matter, Daroga. It doesn't matter. Anyway, I have a bigger problem."

"Yeah, a murderer's on the loose. But leave that to the pol—"

"No, bigger than that, even. I heard voices before I passed out…"

"Maybe you lost your mind."

"They were the spirits from our Midnight Hours. And they're probably responsible for that impenetrable darkness. It's been… what, almost thirty years? All this time, maybe they were never at peace. Lost. Now that the veil between our worlds is thin again… Daroga, they've come for me."


	12. Stay of Execution

Chapter 12: Stay of Execution

Light reappeared by the time Raoul found Christine, but he insisted on taking her back to Manhattan. His Bronx ride in the spreading dawn had opened his eyes to the mayhem wreaked by the strange darkness. The twisted carcasses of totaled and burned-out vehicles riddled the highways and backed up rush-hour traffic for miles. She didn't refuse—what if Judge Delgado attacked her in her apartment? But she was too embarrassed to explain anything to Raoul. When he asked, she only said she'd been following up on a lead on the murder before the darkness hit.

He said nothing else, but held the cab door open while she climbed inside. They crossed the bridge in silence, rode all the way down to Chelsea without another word between them. She didn't trust herself to speak. Beset with shame and regret, crippled with doubts and confusion, she stared vacantly out the window. The cab stopped in front of Raoul's high-rise, and he paid the driver. She let him take her arm and lead her through the lobby to the elevator, then into his penthouse apartment, then into his bedroom, where he tucked her into his bed and went out to the living room sofa to let her sleep.

She didn't sleep; she cried.

She mourned the end of her trust, of her confidence, her missing locket—and yes, the end of her affair with Erik. Safe in Raoul's bed, she could admit to herself that she wanted to return and fall back under Erik's spell and love him again. But he was a liar, a predator, and a murderer. Or was he? If he did murder Becket and shove the corpse into his own vestibule, then why had he looked so distraught when the body was found? Why invent that story about a man named Nasr Khan, and why warn her that she was in danger and had to stay away?

The sheets wound around her ankles as she tossed and turned. By some miracle, she finally drifted off to sleep, dreaming of hollow, gray eyes and a red rose corsage.

She was out on sick leave for three days.

Raoul let her stay. He bought her clothes and pajamas and cooked for her every evening. While he was at work, she lounged around and admired the view, which looked out over the Hudson River to Hoboken. It was already early October, and the leaves were turning vivid, fiery hues.

The private investigator sent her a text message: _Can confirm the tip was NOT from Khan_, he wrote. _Does the name Deshawn Brown ring a bell?_

No, it didn't. All the more reason to move on.

Still she thought more of Erik than she did of Raoul, but only because the former was still an enigma: Respectable jurists don't usually bargain with the Devil. And why cast a spell over her? He could surely find a date without such subterfuge.

She forced herself to think of her host. Her relationship with Erik was over, and here was Raoul sparing no expense on her behalf, sacrificing his comforts for hers. He still slept on the living room sofa—when he slept at all. She'd suggested they switch, but he wouldn't hear of it. She wasn't attracted to him, and felt guilty for it. Compared to Erik, he was still a boy, paler and more docile and less fearsome. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't imagine giving in to him the way she'd surrendered to Erik on the roof of his courthouse.

_Sorcery._

* * *

Although he was awake now, and sane and sober, Judge Delgado believed he was in Hell. His own eyes punished him, transforming ordinary items into hideous hallucinations. Shadows played across the wood-paneled walls of his courtroom like a nightmarish kaleidoscope. Familiar attorney's faces decayed into features he had tried to forget, faces twisted by torture and dripping with blood. He reached for his gavel and drew back in horror: it was a severed arm. A second glance, and it was only his gavel again, though he didn't want to touch it. And the spirits continued their constant whispering, filling his mind with disturbing, sinister static that crawled in his ears like teeming spiders on reaching, prickling legs. He sucked in deep breaths and fought the urge to scream.

This was the consequence of Saturn entering Scorpio. Or rather, the consequence of his own actions decades ago under a similar sign.

He kept Christine's locket in the breast pocket of his suit, close to his own heart. When he was alone, he held it in both hands like a sacramental. It was all he had against this nightmare. But it wasn't enough; he suffered alone. He missed Christine. Forgetting her was like giving up breathing. He lost his appetite, lost sleep, lost focus at work. Still, he considered himself lucky. For a brief, miraculous time, he had shared a love both sensual and sincere. He had kissed her. Heard her laugh. Seen her eyes smile when she looked at him. His memories would get him through purgatory—until God showed mercy and ended it all.

* * *

Meg was not the only colleague to hide a knowing smirk when Christine came in late Monday morning with Raoul. The receptionist stifled her own smile before passing Christine a large manila envelope.

"Delivery for you. I had to sign for it."

Raoul carried it for her down the hall to her office. By the water cooler, staff were still discussing the blackout. Those who'd been asleep when it'd happened had seen the carnage that it'd left behind. One of the senior attorneys suspected terrorists.

Christine dumped her bag behind her office door before settling in her chair and ripping into the envelope. She expected briefs from opposing counsel on many of her cases, but none of those papers had to be hand-delivered. Maybe one of the lawyers was being extra thorough.

She wasn't expecting to see the name of Judge Erik R. Delgado.

His name could still stir her insides, as though the syllables were the eerie melody of a bewitching song. She had hoped to never hear of him again.

"If you're all set, I'll leave you to your work—" Raoul stopped when he saw her face. "What's wrong?"

She brushed her fingertips across Erik's name. "It's a subpoena," she answered, her voice barely above a whisper. "From the Commission on Judicial Conduct. They're investigating Judge Delgado, and they want me to appear on October 31st for _testimony_." Her voice wavered as she said the word, as though it meant damnation.

"Testimony. About whether the Post article is true?" Raoul laughed. "I guess that's one way to prove—"

"I can't do this." Still staring at Erik's name, she dropped the paper onto her desk and shoved back her chair.

"What! This is your chance to clear your name. Besides, it says here you'll be arrested if you don't cooperate."

Her hands slid along her throat for her locket before she remembered it was lost.

"Christine?"

"Christine!" cried Meg at the open door. "Your face! What's wrong?"

Frank Richards and Carlotta, passing down the hall, peered past Meg into Christine's tiny office.

"She has to testify about the Post article," Raoul explained with a shrug. "I'm not sure why that's so bad."

Meg erupted into wicked peals of laughter. "Because it means she has to confess to everyone that it was _you_ she kissed instead of Delgado!"

Christine leapt from her chair. Her mouth fell open.

"What… What are you talking about?" Raoul turned to Meg. "We've never kissed."

"In the park—"

"Guys! I have to work." Christine returned to her seat and opened a random case file. "Please, just—"

"…But," Meg said, "if you didn't kiss Mr. DeChagny… then…?"

Raoul's eyes traveled from Meg's look of confused horror to Christine's flushed face. "Oh, God…. Oh, Christine. Is _that_ why you can't testify?"

"No, I, uh…" She had nowhere to run. Too many people blocked her exit. If only her office had a window, she could have made her escape. She wanted to sink into the floor, or just disappear. Her face was burning.

"I told you that's how she wins her cases!" Carlotta cried. "She's fucking her inbred, Latin lover!"

"How dare you! It's not like that at all!"

"Everybody, shut up!" Frank commanded. "All of you, get back to work. I'll speak to Christine." He stepped into Christine's office. Closed the door. There wasn't enough space for him to sit, so he leaned against the door and crossed his arms. "Explain yourself."

She swallowed. Shame constricted her throat, strained her voice. "I… I kissed Judge Delgado—"

"Oh my God." He groaned and covered his face with his hands.

"—and told Meg that I kissed Raoul. But that was all. I mean, I didn't… do anything else."

"Does Ratner know this? Is that why he complained to the CJC?"

"He might have seen us together."

"Jesus Christ, Christine," Raoul muttered. "You should have told me you were seeing someone."

She couldn't meet his eyes.

"When did… how long has this been going on?" asked Frank.

"Since Polini's reception. We just sorta… admitted our feelings for each other. But after the Post article came out, we kept our distance. We broke up last week. Turned out he wasn't the man I thought he was." That wasn't entirely true, but it would have to do for now.

Silence as both men considered her answer.

"Well," Frank reasoned, "you have to testify. There's no way out of it, unless Delgado recuses himself from the Albrizzio case and the CJC agrees to drop the investigation. But at least you can minimize the damage: testify that the relationship is over and explain why you ended it."

Dread spread through her veins like a sour poison. "But my reasons are very personal!"

"It's your only chance to exonerate yourself."

Exposing Erik's treachery had seemed like the right course of action when she'd been sitting in the dark bus after discovering his deception. But in the light of day, after a week's deliberation, she had second thoughts. He wasn't all bad. He'd shown her clients kindness and compassion. Inspired her career. Didn't he deserve the same mercy?

"I'll have to think about it," she replied.

"What's there to think about?" said Raoul. "You have no choice! Your own reputation is at stake." He counted his arguments on his manicured fingers: "You _have_ to testify. You _have_ to admit to your relationship with Delgado—however short-lived and distant it may have been. And you _have_ to explain why you regret it."

"And what if I refuse? What if I'd rather go to jail?"

"What?" laughed Carlotta from behind the door. "Does she have a beau with the Department of Corrections, too?"

Frank turned to the closed door. "Still there? I thought I told you to get back to work!"

"Christine," said Raoul, "don't be foolish. This is your chance to clear your name."

"I can't exonerate myself at his expense."

"Well, he's forcing your hand," Frank said. "He hasn't recused."

"This is crazy," she sighed, close to tears. "He's crazy for not recusing, and you're both crazy for thinking I should go through with this!"

"You have no choice!" repeated Raoul, raising his voice in frustration. "You heard Carlotta. She's not the only one who thinks you have an 'arrangement' with Delgado. You've got to control the damage, take the stand and explain what really happened."

She shook her head. She couldn't imagine how such an inquest would play out. She needed to think, she needed to be alone, and she needed her father.

"I'm taking my lunch break now." She rose from her chair. Slung her purse over her shoulder. "I'll be back in an hour."

Without waiting for a response, she pushed past Raoul and her boss and opened the door. Meg and Carlotta were too shocked to say anything, their mouths hanging open like catfish. She pushed past them, too, and past half the office, and ran out of the crowded waiting room without a word.

On the street, she hurried towards the subway station, her flat shoes pounding the pavement and her purse swinging from side to side. An old lady with a cane paused to watch the white girl plunge into the steaming subway.

A train pulled into the station with a noise like rumbling thunder. Christine all but dove down the stairs, but even as she swiped her MetroCard and slid through the turnstile, she knew she was too late. The train pulled away just as she reached the platform. With the morning rush already over (and since she was going north rather than down to Manhattan anyway), it would be at least ten minutes before another train came. She sighed and slumped onto one of the benches. Hopefully no one from the office followed her.

The platform was empty except for a Middle Eastern-looking man wearing a golf shirt and khakis. His skin was lightly tanned; he had a narrow nose and regal, arching eyebrows. His eyes were an arresting pale green.

He approached her casually. "Miss Dale, I presume?"

"Do we know each other?" She'd often run into former clients while on the street or taking public transportation. But she couldn't recall ever seeing him before.

"I should be asking you that question, I think. After all, you've paid good money to find me." He smiled at her confusion. "I'm Nasr Khan."

**a/n: YOU GUYS. I love all of your reviews. Thanks so much for taking the time to drop me a note. They're very helpful. Especially that _epic_ novel of a review left by "magic." Wow.**


	13. Reconsideration

Chapter 13: Reconsideration

Christine's mind raced. How had Khan known she'd been looking for him? He was a felon—assuming Erik hadn't lied to her. And although the investigator said Khan wasn't the Post's source, he still may have been involved. But even if he was dangerous, right now she preferred talking to him than to Raoul or Frank.

"Anyway," Khan continued, lowering his voice, "I didn't kill the reporter. I didn't even _tip off_ the reporter. When I read that article, I just laughed. I didn't believe it was true." He dropped onto the seat beside her and studied her with his penetrating, pale green eyes. "I still have a hard time believing it."

"Because it isn't true! …Not all of it."

"Well, let's both agree to judge for ourselves, instead of believing the rumors, then. Shall we?"

He seemed calm and sociable, not at all like a crazy, desperate killer. If he was lying, she'd catch on eventually. The trick was to keep him talking. "Well, some rumors are true, aren't they?" She chewed her lower lip and glanced down between the grimy tracks, where a rat scurried by the third rail. "For example, did you know that Erik casts spells and summons demons?"

Khan burst out laughing. "No, Erik doesn't summon _demons_!" He lowered his voice again. "He summons the dead."

An icy current slid down the back of her neck.

"He's a necromancer," he explained. "Calls up dead spirits. Or, at least he used to. But the rumors in the paper —hypnotism and sorcery—he can't do any of that. His powers are very limited, you could say. And he's not a vampire, in case you were wondering."

_I can't even control my own feelings_, he'd told her. _I never imagined controlling yours._ She hadn't believed him. If what Khan said were true, then the only thing Erik controlled was a Ouija board. And she'd made a complete ass of herself last week, storming out of his house over nothing more than harmless Halloween decorations.

Khan noticed her troubled frown. "Please don't blame him, Miss Dale. He would never have… It's my fault. You see, we had this study group in college: me, him, a guy with a lame leg from Erik's physics class, and a dwarf he met in some other class. Classmates used to call us the Freak Show. We studied together, ate meals together—talked about girls. And we were Freemasons—that'd been Erik's idea. None of the fraternities on campus would accept the Freak Show, so the four of us were apprenticed to the Freemasons. We even offered to help clean up after their meetings and events. By our sophomore year, the Masons entrusted us with a set of keys for the temple and its basement, where they stored the chairs and props and folding tables—"

"But what does that have to do with necromancy?"

"Well, we quickly got bored of just being Freemasons. We were looking for something more fantastic. It's that age, you know? You want to do crazy shit, you're not yet old enough to know better, or you're too young to care about consequences. Our classmates committed some real reckless feats, back then. That's when Todd (the guy with the leg) found a very, very old German book on the occult. He showed it to Michael, our dwarf, whose parents were German. It turned out to be an instructional textbook on Necromancy. According to the book, we were in the perfect era for a successful summoning. Back then, the planet Saturn was in the constellation of Scorpio, which wouldn't happen again for another thirty years! Can you believe the coincidence? And we already had keys to the perfect place for casting a summons. We three decided to try a spell, and to have Erik be the one to do it—for a couple of reasons. First of all, Erik knows Latin. Also, the book said necromancers need a sharp mind and strong will, or else the spirits you summon can possess you. And we figured any spirits that appeared would be too terrified by Erik's face to harm us.

"But as much as Erik was the perfect candidate, he was also the staunchest objector. You could say he's the most Freemason of the four of us. He's also devotedly Catholic, the only one in our Freak Show practicing an organized religion. He'd enjoyed reading Michael's translation (I mean, it was packed with such strange detail, who could resist?), but he refused to try it out himself. So it fell on me, as his closest friend, to get him to play his part. Reasoning with him didn't work. I had to coerce him instead."

"What did you do?"

"I'd rather not recount what I did. Suffice to say I made his life hell for several weeks, and he finally agreed to perform the spell. On Halloween. He must have thought he was selling his soul."

She believed him. Khan took all the blame, furnished every detail while looking straight at her with his earnest, jade eyes. And it was easy to imagine Erik, principled as he ever was, resisting participation in their caper.

"The four of us gathered the ingredients: candles and salt and random crazy herbs and things. And we needed a name, so we would know whom to summon, so I chose a name from an old Persian text, one that'd fascinated me for the fact that it had no history behind it. With Erik's scholarly precision, he adhered to Michael's handwritten directions for chalking the circle on the basement floor in the Masonic Temple. His hand was shaking as he made the pentagram inside. We had to goad him a little to get him to finish. Then the four of us sat cross-legged inside the circle (Todd with his lame leg stuck out at a weird angle, Michael practically in my lap). We were laughing nervously and scolding each other to be quiet. Candlelight flickered on the cement block walls as Erik began the Latin incantations."

The fluorescent lights of the station flickered against the cement wall behind the train track. Khan painted such a vivid picture, she felt as though she was in the basement with them, thirty years in the past.

"Surely it didn't actually work…" she whispered.

"It did, to our shock and surprise. We never even imagined it would work. We were more like children playing make-believe; four college sophomores proving we were men, scaring ourselves with ghost stories while staying out in the woods. Even Erik, our reluctant practitioner, had been more concerned with being damned for just _trying_ than with the consequences of actually managing to summon the dead. What followed was a night of horror.

"He'd told us to expect only some vague sensations, like mysterious knocking, or unusual smells, or wispy shadows. Odd cold spots. Instead, as soon as he began, we heard a loud, long shriek, like a woman in the throes of insanity, the most horrible noise for its terror and despair that turned our stomachs. In front of us, in the chalk triangle he'd drawn, materialized a ghostly, terrifying apparition with _no eyes_, still screaming, and we were all covering our ears except Erik. He simply watched the thing with a composure that bordered on insane—his now-infamous judge's persona. Seeing his disfigured face completely calm, his eyes half closed, I was as frightened of him as I was of the wraith."

He paused as their train pulled into the station, its breaks screaming like the wraith he described. At last the scream ceased, and the doors opened. The car was completely empty. They entered alone. The doors closed; the train rushed onwards.

Although there was no one to overhear, Khan sat beside her and continued in the same quiet tone as before: "My terror mounted when I next heard Erik speak. With a cold, commanding voice we'd never heard before, he directed the terrifying entity to cease its theatrics. (He would later use that same voice in court—but never with you.) Erik is the ideal judge, and he was the perfect necromancer. He had absolute authority over his person, and he was determined to control the apparition as well. He kept repeating his commands, until like a mesmerist he got the dead woman to reveal her true form. The shadows fell away, and we saw that she was naked, upside down—and flayed.

"Intoxicated with excitement and curiosity, we prompted Erik to order her to tell us how she died. He gave the instruction, and it was as though her flesh determined to show rather than tell. In a sudden flash of light, her skin was whole again, and the woman screamed in agony and injustice as she tried to explain. 'They're rending me! It burns! It burns!' We watched in revolted horror as her skin split from invisible knives, revealing bright red muscle and bleeding fat. Her narration was barely comprehensible. She was in too much pain. We never learned who had flayed her alive or why. We were never able to confirm if she was the person I'd chosen from my book. Her cries persisted long after she should have fainted (she _couldn't_ faint, she was already dead). Erik took pity and dismissed her, and in the next second, she was gone."

The conductor announced the next stop, and Christine jumped in her seat. The train pulled into the station, opened its doors. No one entered their car. Soon they were moving once again.

Khan continued: "The silence that followed that ordeal was as awful as the terror we'd just witnessed. The candlelight still flickered against the concrete wall behind where the dead woman had been writhing. Erik moaned, 'God God oh my God,' and rubbed his forehead with a shaking hand. He looked like he'd aged twenty years. None of the rest of us could speak. I forced myself to leave the circle and turn on the lights. That helped a little. We quickly cleaned up our mess, swept away the circle, doused the candles. Everyone avoided the triangle where the spirit had appeared.

"This was only the beginning of what would be our Midnight Hours at the Masonic Temple. Erik swore he would never do it again, but that first night had whetted our appetite for the macabre. No one wanted to admit we were scared. Besides, Saturn would stay in Scorpio for another two years. Now we had a real Freak Show! We gathered names from the cemeteries and history books, and wrote them in a special ledger, along with all the instructions and chants and commands. We bullied Erik to cast the circle almost every week. We witnessed murders, suicides, fatal accidents, wasting illnesses. They must have died decades if not centuries ago. We watched each soul repeat its death, in gory detail, sometimes in slow motion, and always with the victims repeating their terrible cries. In effect, we tortured souls that had been otherwise left to rest. Erik stopped taking communion at church.

"The Freemasons never found out what we were doing. We kept it up until graduation, only allowing Erik a reprieve during exams. It took a few more years after that for us to mature enough to understand what incredible crimes we had committed. Guilt motivated our professions, we sought redemption in service: Todd returned to Detroit and eventually became a forensic anthropologist, Michael a DA in Massachusetts, and Erik and I stayed in New York to pursue law and order.

"But Erik has kept up some small practices for his own sake. He can conjure shadows (which are actually dead light) to cover his face, which doesn't do a whole lot to hide his ugliness."

Hadn't Erik told her as much when she'd found his circle? _If I could master other's minds, do you think I'd let them see me as I am?_

"And he can control other dead things, like cut flowers. He can keep them looking fresh. He can even manipulate the shadows to change the flower's color. Those roses he pins to his suit? He magicks them. These are minor spells, so he doesn't need the alignment of the stars for it to work. But it takes concentration. When he's tired, he can't summon shadows or keep up a flower, so it starts to lose its color and wilt.

"But he's in real trouble now. All those souls we made him summon thirty years ago? He says they never actually returned to rest. I don't know what happened; I heard him dismiss them every time. But now that the veil between worlds is thinner again, they've found him. He's haunted. He can't control so many of them at once. That blackout we had last week? That was them."

And she'd thought Erik had been the cause of that terrible darkness, when in fact he'd been its victim. "What… What will they do to him?"

"They'll drive him mad, or worse—they'll seize his soul and subject him to eternal suffering. Everything he did to them, but without end. He's at their mercy."

"Oh God!"

"But I don't think they want revenge. First and foremost, they want peace. They can't rest until he formally dismisses them."

"But you said he did that already."

"He did. He did. But something must have gone wrong. I don't think he can do it alone. He needs help. _Your_ help."

"Me!? Why me? This is your fault."

"Successful necromancy depends on the practitioner's confidence. The spirits sense hesitancy. Maybe, at the end of each session, Erik… lapsed. His Catholic guilt caught up to him, and he didn't think he could do it anymore."

"But what's that got to do with me?"

He regarded her with his strange, green eyes. "Do you love him?"

Unit now, she'd believed she was under a spell. If what Khan said were true, then her passion for Erik—as incredible as it was—was real. Extraordinary, but still natural. As were the ways in which it had changed her character, such that she forgot propriety and even forgot her clients, her mind so eclipsed… She may not have had any power over its beginnings, but she was the only one to direct its destiny.

She stood from her seat. Only then did she realize that the train had stopped between stations. A delay, some type of signal malfunction. As if even the subway had paused to hear her answer.

"Think about it carefully, Miss Dale," Khan warned. "Time is running out. The anniversary of our first summons is mere weeks away. Halloween."


	14. Ex Parte Communication

Chapter 14: Ex Parte Communication

Saint Raymond's Cemetery slept in lonely silence beneath a blanket of clouds as Christine passed through the gates and headed southward over the rolling grounds. She missed her father's guidance, missed his reassuring presence. Hadn't he promised her a guardian angel? Yet her life was a mess, her career a wreck. Not since his death had she felt so alone and unsure.

Leaves made papery rustlings in the chill wind as they died on their branches. The breeze carried the dusty scent of funeral roses.

_Like Erik_.

Despite the chill, her face grew warm. She wandered through the sea of graves to the cemetery's southern edge, where the Whitestone Bridge towered over the horizon like a misty path to the Pearly Gates. Last year, she'd buried her father somewhere in the middle of this section, in the thirty-first row.

Her footsteps froze.

The closer she came to her father, the more distinctly she heard a familiar voice on the wind, whispering Spanish with a subdued and solemn resonance. Time stood still, and her heart began to pound.

Was it only her imagination, excited by her talk with Khan?

She spun around, searched among the monuments and stone angels and hardly dared to hope. Her throat went dry as she saw, far to the west, a man in a suit sitting with his legs tucked under him and his right temple pressed against a weathered headstone as though he'd fallen asleep. His face was in shadow; on his lapel was a red rose corsage. An oak's branches trembled in the wind and sprinkled shade over Erik's motionless form. His eyes were closed, and his thin lips moved as though he were talking to someone, but no other living soul was in the yard.

She made no attempt to hide her approach, and at the crunch of her footsteps his eyes sprung open. He leapt to his feet and straightened his tie. "Christine!... Miss Dale."

Her name, in his quiet tenor, sounded like a prayer.

Overwhelmed by her own joy, she forgot what she'd wanted to say. She realized she was smiling.

He stared at her wide-eyed as though she were an apparition. "How did you know where to find me?"

"I didn't. I'm visiting my father." She looked back across the sea of graves as she collected her thoughts. They were alone in the cemetery. "The CJC subpoenaed me to testify in an investigation of your conduct."

"I know."

"But if you recuse from the Albrizzio case, they might close the investigation. I won't have to testify."

"You do what you have to," he said softly.

She pulled back. "You mean you won't recuse? Erik, I'll have to tell _everything_."

"We only kissed." He lowered his eyes, slid his hands into his pockets. "There was no 'arrangement.' Your testimony will contradict the Post's accusations."

"But this isn't about whether the Post was right! This is about whether you… whether you have feelings for me."

He smiled and shook his head. "There's no question about my feelings: The issue is whether those feelings affect my objectivity."

"They don't?" Leaning against the headstone had given his silver hair a macabre cowlick that she longed to smooth with her fingers. She crossed her arms against her chest instead.

"Of course not. I'm always fair. Anyway," he added when he saw her frown, "it's hardly relevant now, since you've terminated the relationship."

"I was wrong! I wasn't prepared for that—your circle, I mean—and I jumped to conclusions. I fell for you so fast, I thought you hypnotized me. All the rumors got to me, I guess. I'm sorry, I should have let you explain it to me the other night. I don't know what came over me. I met Nasr Khan on my way here, and he told me about… about your past."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Torturing dead souls wasn't as bad as what you thought?"

"I'm sorry." The words were too small for the gravity of her feeling. Her toe poked at the grass as she tried for the apology he deserved.

"_Torturing_ dead souls isn't as bad as what you thought?" he repeated angrily. "You'd feel differently if you'd ever been burned alive, or crushed by a horse, or crucified! Imagine the worst pain of your life, and now imagine that I, Erik Delgado… that I—that I force you to suffer again, for as long as it pleases me. Their pain was my entertainment, Christine—I am damned!"

"But you only did it because Mr. Khan made you!"

"Is that what he told you? Then why would I still have a circle of power in my house? You haven't thought this through."

The wind blew colder. The sky grew darker.

"What are you saying?"

"Look, Christine. Come look here." He gestured at the headstone beside him.

She was afraid to look. Her mind screamed for her to turn and flee. His dark and furious expression told her that nothing good could be on that headstone. But she swallowed her terror and stepped closer. Chiseled in lichen-crusted stone was the name:

Alma Delgado  
November 11, 1944  
October 13, 1988

"My mother," he explained. He tore one of the last white blossoms from a rosebush beside the grave and crushed it in his hand, letting the petals fall around the headstone.

Christine let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Mr. Khan said you were just a freshman when she passed away. Losing my dad last year was hard enough; I can't imagine being on my own as young as you were."

"Being 'on my own' was less of a problem. Everyone gets lonely. But my mother… She… she always smiled when she looked at me. I was planning to summon her."

Christine gasped. The blood in her veins turned to cold, heavy lead.

"But I never went through with it. I mean, I made the circle, the one you saw in my house, but it wasn't the right time yet." His face broke in a terrifying, ironic grin. "Saturn wasn't in Scorpio. It wouldn't be there for another ten years. I had time to prepare. Perform little rituals to rouse her. Hang her picture, burn the incense, grow her favorite flowers, recite the chants, all building up towards the traditional finale..."

He lifted his eyes to Heaven, and his smoky irises seemed illuminated with divine light.

A sudden thought struck Christine. "She's the bride in the large photograph in front of your circle."

"Yes…" His glance swept across the cemetery and finally rested on Christine. "Why? Who did you think that was?"

"I thought… maybe… your wife."

"You thought I was married! Did you think I kept my wife locked in the attic?... Or did you suspect me in her murder?"

"No, I just thought she'd died, and that you still missed her."

"And that upset you."

Actually, she'd been heartbroken to think that he was already married. It was part of why she'd flipped out when she'd found the room with his Circle of Power.

"No, Christine, I never married. There was never anyone besides you. Only my mother—and I intended to disturb that good woman's rest. Now do you understand the sinner with whom you've been associating?"

"Then fix it, Erik! Make this right. Dismiss the souls you summoned and recuse from the Albrizzio case."

"I can't. You flatter me a very capable man. Honestly, I don't know how to dismiss the spirits, and I've already told you why I can't recuse."

"Because you don't feel enough for me."

"That's not what I—"

"But that's what it means! There's nothing objective about love. When you love someone, they're more important than anyone else. You'd lie for them, if you had to. You'd die for them. You'd change the rules."

He said nothing.

"You _can't_ arbitrate my cases fairly; because love means you have a preference."

"Then I don't love you, if that's how you define it," he replied gravely. "I'm always fair."

Infuriating man! She would have left him standing there, but for her training as an attorney. She'd convinced judges who'd been against her at the start, had won cases on little more than her own persistence, and knew better than to concede. This judge hadn't kissed her like one who was "fair," and she suspected he hadn't handled the Albrizzio hearing very objectively, either. Was he trying to hide his partiality, or was he innocently unaware of her power over him?

"If you don't love me," she asked aloud, "then why are you following me?"

"I didn't follow you. You came to me, remember?"

"Why are you here, then, in the middle of the work day?"

"For solace." He was far too distraught to discuss recusal. "Didn't Nasr tell you about the sign? How the veil between worlds thins when Saturn passes into the constellation of Scorpius?"

She nodded.

"In such times, the dead can sense us, and I sense _them_. But the lost souls from the Masonic Temple don't dare disturb me on hallowed ground. I rest almost as good as the dead, here. But the dead can hear us, they know when we're near, and even here I can sense their feelings—even my mother."

Christine eyed the gravestone wearily. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to say or do. Meeting your lover's parents for the first time is awkward enough; meeting a dead one is even less comfortable. "A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Delgado," she finally whispered at the weathered grave.

He smiled, his eyes shining with tears. "You don't know how happy she is to finally meet you."

"Well, now that I've met your mother, can I introduce you to my father?"

"Your father?" He raked his wild hair. "But I… Well, yes!"

He kissed his fingers and pressed them to the top of his mother's headstone with more whispered Spanish. Then he motioned for Christine to lead the way. They passed silently through the garden of graves and stopped before a double headstone. The first name was nearly as worn as Erik's mother's had been:

Joyce Dale  
May 27, 1965  
February 19, 1998

The second name was so freshly carved into the stone, tears stung Christine's eyes:

George Dale  
March 4, 1964  
October 26, 2018

Side-by-side, they stared at the simple graves. Christine wondered whether Erik felt as strangely as she'd felt talking to his mother.

"Your father recognizes me," he said with some surprise.

She turned to him in amazement. "Yes, he knew you. He used to testify in arson cases. He was a fire marshal." She turned back to the graves, half hoping to see George and Joyce Dale watching her.

Of course, no one was there. Only the lifeless headstone.

"How do you do it?" she asked Erik. "How can you sense him? Is it necromancy?"

"I don't know… Maybe I'm just naturally receptive."

"Oh. So you couldn't teach me, then."

"It's a dangerous practice, Christine."

"I just want to know he's here. All I see is that stone. I mean, I saw them bury him, he's down there in his coffin somewhere, but it doesn't feel like it anymore. Just once, I wish I could really feel like he's nearby."

Erik frowned at the gravestone. "I've never tried it with someone else before... Give me your hand, and close your eyes. This might not work, though. I don't know."

She did as he instructed, and felt his strong fingers tighten over hers. After a deep breath, he gently lifted her hand and placed it on top of the headstone such that she was grasping it as he'd held his mother's headstone. His large hand pressed down on hers. At first, all she felt was the cold, abrasive stone. Maybe he couldn't share his gift after all—but then she gasped as sensations engulfed her as though she sank into a warm bath.

There had been many times, after Joyce Dale had passed away when Christine was just a pre-teen, that Christine would stay awake late at night, waiting for her father to come home. She knew his work was dangerous, that there might be a day when his shift ended and she'd still be waiting all night except that he wasn't coming home. That he might leave her as her mother had done. Worrying for him, she couldn't sleep. But at last the door always opened and her father came home. The click of his key in the latch always melted her tight nerves into relief and comfort and safety and happiness. The same sensations she now felt washing over her, filling her, relaxing her, with her hand on his grave.

Her father was home. Everything would be all right.

"Daddy…" she whispered. The tears she'd forgotten spilled down her cheeks.

She hadn't realized that Erik no longer held her hand, until the distant slam of a car door woke her from a trance. She opened her eyes. Erik was gone. Wind shook the branches overhead, sending dead leaves spinning to the ground like her falling tears. Over the shushing sound of the shaking leaves, a car engine roared to life and slowly faded away.

At her feet, over her father's grave, lay a single, white rose.


	15. Inquest

Chapter 15: Inquest

Delgado sat in the waiting room of the Commission of Judicial Conduct with his elbows on his thighs and his fingers steepled against his lips. The room was no bigger than his foyer at home. The walls were bare except for the words "Commission of Judicial Conduct" in bronze letters directly above the seal of the Unified Courts of the State of New York, hanging over the receptionist's window. A troop of empty, armless chairs surrounded him, their rusting metal frames upholstered in black vinyl. In one corner, a small table held a mess of magazines from six months ago. There was also a large, fake tree by the entrance, opposite the coatrack where Delgado had hung his trench coat and fedora and umbrella.

Directly across from him was the reception window with its sliding panel shut against him. It was the only window in the room. Beyond it, the receptionist held an office phone to her ear and studied her computer screen. She watched him out of the corner of her eye.

The room was so silent, he could hear the whisperings of his constant, bodiless companions.

_Dirty jurissst… Dissshonessst man…_

_Out of time… Hopelesssss…_

_Recuse! You lose! Recusse! You lose!_

He closed his eyes and put a hand over his heart, over the pocket holding his souvenir of Christine.

He wanted to go home.

He was in Manhattan, and he'd had to pay to park in a garage. He could have taken the subway, but the stares from commuters and the questions from children would have destroyed his tattered composure. As it was, he'd had to walk several blocks from the parking garage. At least the storm had given him an excuse to hide under his umbrella, but it hadn't helped him in the lobby, or in the crowded elevator as he rode to the twelfth floor. There had been a few double-takes as folks first saw him, then awkwardly glanced at their own shoelaces or the walls or even the ceiling. Anything besides him. And when he had found the right suite and walked into that God-forsaken waiting room, the receptionist had risen from her desk to stare at him through the window with her mouth wide open in alarm. He'd given his name casually, leading by example, but she hadn't heard him the first time because she'd been too busy discovering his boutonnière. After he had repeated himself, she'd turned to her computer and looked all over her desk in a fluster, mumbling for him to take a seat as she closed the window.

"Judge Delgado?" she now called politely, having re-opened her window to stare at his boutonnière. "They're ready for you."

Delgado stood and straightened his tie. The receptionist left her desk and opened the door leading to the inner sanctum, then led him down a clean, bright hallway into a room lined with bookcases. A long conference table filled the room, surrounded by mushroom-colored office chairs from the 1980s.

His shoulders drooped. No courtroom; no dark-paneled walls or vintage chandeliers. No polished wooden bench. After a decade in his distinguishing career, his fate would be decided by strangers in a cheap conference room.

At least the state and national flags were in attendance, crammed together in three feet of space between bookcases. Golden letters on the beige wall above them read IN GOD WE TRUST.

Across the room, between two tall windows dressed in aluminum miniblinds, sat a man Delgado recognized as a stuffy, older lawyer from Brooklyn. The man had the long jowls and condescending frown of an English bulldog. He wasn't even wearing a suit; a sweater vest covered his shirt and tie. A stenographer sat to his right.

Neither of them rose from their seats to greet him.

The man's gaze flicked to Delgado's face before dropping back to the legal pad in front of him. "Judge Delgado," he said dourly, "I'm Ted Rosenbaum, an appointee of the Commission. You were subpoenaed to answer allegations concerning your relationship with Christine Dale, an attorney with The Bronx Defense Project. Please understand that this—" He glanced up from the table and found that Delgado was still standing where the receptionist had left him before closing the door. "You may be seated, sir."

"Anywhere in particular I should sit?"

"Wherever you're comfortable—closer to the stenographer. She needs to hear you."

Delgado nodded at the startled stenographer before taking his seat.

"As I started to say, this is not a formal hearing. Think of this as an inquest. You will be under oath, and we have a stenographer here to make a transcript, but at this stage we're merely investigating the allegations and haven't filed formal charges. Do you understand?"

"Yes, but I thought the Commission usually just mails interrogatories."

"That's true in most cases, but in this case your presence is required so we can make observations."

Delgado scowled. "What kind of observations?"

Rosenbaum shifted on his chair and cleared his throat. "Well, like your…." He gestured with his expensive fountain pen at Delgado's scars.

"You wanted to see if I was as ugly as the rumors say."

Rosenbaum shrugged. He was already staring down at his legal pad again. "Your appearance _is_ relevant to our assessment—I mean, as far as whether we can believe…"

"… the juicy gossip in the New York Post," Delgado finished for him. "What do you think so far, Mr. Rosenbaum?"

He cleared his throat again before replying, "We will make our determination at the conclusion of the investigation, after all the facts have been drawn."

"But what will you tell the Commission about your 'observations'?"

Rosenbaum ignored him. He pulled his chair closer to the table and wagged his fountain pen between his fingers while he read his notes for the hundredth time. "You'll know our findings when we issue our decision. Please raise your right hand."

Delgado knew Bronx judges who were on the Commission, and he wished one of them could take his testimony instead of Rosenbaum. But, of course, the Commission on Judicial Conduct would never allow colleagues to investigate each other. He obediently raised his hand and swore to tell the truth.

"Do you know Christine Dale?" Rosenbaum asked him.

"Yes."

_Surrender… Resign… Hope isss losssst…_

"What is your relationship with her?"

"Professional acquaintances. She appeared in my court a handful of times."

"I see…" Rosenbaum tapped his pen against his notepad. "Isn't there a motion pending for your recusal in one of her cases?"

"There's a motion pending, but the case is _not_ hers; one of her Defense Project colleagues has the case."

"But Miss Dale has appeared on the case?"

"Yes. Once."

"And are you aware of an article in the New York Post alleging a romantic relationship between you and Miss Dale?"

"Yes, I'm well aware."

"Then why haven't you recused?"

"There's no basis for my recusal."

Rosenbaum snorted and peered at Delgado. "Really? You don't think the Post article suggests impropriety?"

"It certainly does, but none of that was my making. I've done nothing improper."

"Well, let's examine that, Judge Delgado. When Miss Dale was last in your court, didn't you—"

The door opened and the receptionist stuck her head in. "Excuse me, Mr. Rosenbaum, but Christine Dale is here for her appointment. She knows she's early—"

"And we're behind schedule. She'll have to wait."

The receptionist nodded and left the room. The door shut quickly behind her.

_Christine!_ With him, in Manhattan! in the same building, on the same floor, in the same suite…! Delgado had to see her. She would brighten his shitty day, her gaze falling over him like warm sunshine, and then he could easily endure the indignities of this inquest.

But at what cost? What if he lost control, as he seemed to do whenever they shared the same room? The last thing he needed was to give Rosenbaum more opportunities for "observations."

"Let's have her join us," Delgado said aloud. In the end, he just couldn't stop himself. It went against all reason, contrary to logic, and certainly against his own interest—but he needed Christine right then, as though he couldn't breathe without her.

Rosenbaum's pen froze, and the man looked up from his notes with his Churchill disdain. "Excuse me?"

"She's here by subpoena too, isn't she? I'd like to ask her some questions as well. We can do it together. Like a deposition."

He shook his head. "That—I can't allow that. It's—Sir, that's highly irregular—"

"Well, so am I. Anyway, it wouldn't prejudice your investigation. You can still make your record, and I can make mine, and then you'll make your decision."

He was still shaking his head. "You don't understand… I have to follow procedures—"

"But you said yourself this isn't a proceeding. You're just gathering information at this stage. Wouldn't it save time to talk to us together?"

Rosenbaum stopped shaking his head and studied his watch with a long sigh. "Off the record," he said to the stenographer. "Wait here while I clear it with a supervisor."


	16. Self-Incrimination

**a/n: Hey, guys! Sorry our Erik isn't in his robes for this DJT corollary; that would have been cool, but it just wasn't working out that way. As always, thanks everyone for your reviews. Even though I've finished writing the story, I edit each chapter before I publish it, and in doing so I apply all of your constructive criticism. So, your reviews make this story even more awesome!**

Chapter 16: Self-Incrimination

When Christine followed Rosenbaum into a seedy conference room, the first thing she saw was Erik standing behind one of the ugly, turd-colored chairs. He lifted his hollow eyes to hers like a thirsty castaway gazing at the rolling surf. The haunting spirits had taken their toll: he was thinner than she'd ever seen him, emaciated even, and his eyes were hollower, darker, and more sunken. His dark lips twisted in a terrible scowl on his left side, while the right wrenched in its chronic sneer. His hair was disheveled; his shoulders stooped like a man tired of living.

Only then did she remember that tonight was Halloween. The anniversary of his first summoning. His deadline to dismiss the spirits. In her distress over her pending testimony, she hadn't realized the date's significance.

Clearly, his attempts to vanquish the lost souls had failed.

Rosenbaum pulled a limp handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead. "Please be seated, and let's go back on record."

They took their places. She sat across from Erik, with Rosenbaum and the stenographer at the head of their tableaux.

A howling wind rattled the tall windowpanes, sending the miniblinds swaying softly. In the corners of the room, shadows flickered as if alive. Erik watched it all without expression, his hand over his heart.

"Miss Dale, please raise your right hand," Rosenbaum said.

She was so nervous, she feared her arm wouldn't work. But her body moved as if on autopilot, and she took her oath as solemnly as though she were exchanging vows.

"The Deputy Administrator of the CJC is allowing a joint inquest, on the condition that there are no breaks during which the subpoenaed persons can discuss testimony, and today's proceedings are strictly confidential. Either of the subpoenaed persons may ask questions of the other. As I explained to you in the waiting room, Miss Dale, you are not obligated to submit to a joint interview. Do you understand and agree to these terms?"

"Yes." Though she didn't understand why Erik had requested this in the first place. Did he have some clever plan?

"Judge Delgado, you're still under oath. Do you understand and agree to these terms?"

"Yes. May I inquire, Mr. Rosenbaum?"

Rosenbaum stifled a smile. "Go ahead."

"Thank you. First of all, Miss Dale, I want to direct your attention to my face. Look at me, please…"

She had been looking directly at him since the moment she first saw him, but she narrowed her eyes and studied him more closely. Here was his impassive poker face, the opposite of his demonstrative expression their last time in court. His eyes, so frightfully hollow, were even more sepulchral without their fire. Above these, his thick eyebrows arched patiently. The jagged mess of his scars stood out more starkly in the florescent lights of the conference room, and his irregular lips were pressed together.

_Put me out of my misery_, he seemed to plead, _tell them how badly I behaved with you. Tell them what you found in my house. Tell them everything._

Hester Prynne's confessor could not have been more formidable, more determined—or more beloved.

"When you're finished looking, please tell us the truth: Am I handsome?"

"Yes."

A murmur from Rosenbaum. Not the answer he'd been expecting, and it was so surprising and so incriminating that he could not have doubted her honesty. She even surprised herself.

Erik maintained his composure; only his voice betrayed his incredulity: "Excuse me? Y-You think I'm handsome?"

"Yes, I do."

Color flared on his face; his pale deformities grew more distinct, the way invisible ink manifests when the paper is held to a flame. "Don't most people find me ugly?"

"I know."

"You disagree with them, then?"

"Yes."

Thunder crashed and rumbled almost directly over the building. She thought the floor shook, but she might have trembled.

Erik didn't even flinch. He narrowed his eyes at her as though she were a puzzle. "_Why_?"

_Good question._ "Um… I don't know."

He opened his mouth to continue that line of questioning—and paused. His eyes rolled, his eyelids blinked then squeezed shut. He groaned and massaged his temples as though agitated by a sudden noise. It looked like he was falling into a seizure, but before she could think of what to do, he shook himself and opened his eyes.

"And were you also aware that I'm fifty-five years old?" he continued, as though nothing had happened.

_The spirits will drive him mad, or worse_, Khan had warned her. How could Erik be so calm! "I knew you were around that age. I didn't know how old you were exactly, though."

The wind rattled the panes again, like someone shook them in fury at being left out in the cold. Christine would have shaken them herself in her fury at being trapped inside.

"Isn't it true that if your father had lived, he and I would be the same age?"

"…Yes."

"Did you love him very much?"

Her fingers searched her throat for her missing locket. "Yes."

Anticipating triumph from his next question, he settled into his conference chair like a king about to issue an important edict. "Isn't it also true, then, that your feelings for me—whatever they are—are influenced by your feelings for your father?"

"No! No. Not at all." Was _that_ what he thought?

"How are you so sure?"

"Because…" She'd never even considered it. "It's not the same at all!"

"How do you know? Come now, Miss Dale, you must be specific—if you're telling the truth!"

Rosenbaum scowled at her from the head of the table, his arms crossed over his chest.

She squirmed in her chair. Chewed her lip. "Because I—I'm… Well, it's…" Without her locket to hold, she clenched her fist. "My attraction and my feelings for you… They're not platonic."

Erik raised his eyebrows. Rosenbaum straightened in his seat and gave a low whistle.

She prayed neither of them would ask her to elaborate.

Lightning flashed against the windows, and the entire conference room went dark. The stenographer gasped. Deafening thunder reverberated off the building's granite façade and echoed in the streets outside.

"The generator should come online shortly," said Rosenbaum.

And it did, with a rather loud and dissonant electric hum from the florescent lights overhead as they flickered with weak, purplish light. The shadows in the corners no longer merely winked; now they writhed.

Erik had his hand over his heart again, over his breast pocket. "Hmm. Where were we? Ah, yes. Miss Dale, let's leave your feelings aside for the moment. Whatever those feelings are, we are _not_ in a relationship, are we?"

It was a leading question, one that implied the correct answer. Rosenbaum didn't notice or didn't care.

"We're not."

"Can you tell us why?"

Both Rosenbaum and the stenographer gaped at her. Erik leaned forward in his seat. She knew that the answer he anticipated would exonerate her and implicate him. Which explained why he'd asked for this joint interview. Again she felt like Hester Prynne on the pillory.

Too bad the Fifth Amendment didn't apply in these situations.

She chewed her bottom lip as she thought up a valid reply, one that was still truthful but less incriminating. "Because… we had a misunderstanding."

"A what?" Erik's face was an amusing contortion of confusion. "What misunderstanding?"

"I didn't trust my feelings. Didn't believe they were real." The words tumbled from her tongue before she could think them through. "But now I'm sure."

Divine fire flared in his eyes, and high color in his cheeks. He struggled to keep his poker face—his mask—from slipping. He couldn't even summon wit to ask another question.

Finally, her judge was speechless.

Above their heads, the florescent lights still emitted zaps and hums and flickered as though from a short circuit.

"Judge Delgado," said Rosenbaum, "none of these questions are getting to the heart of the matter. Maybe you're not in a relationship _at the moment_, but you may have been before. I must make my examination."

Erik still stared at Christine. "As you wish."

"…Uh…" He flipped through his notes. Scratched his head. "… We've had so many interruptions, I forgot most of what was already asked and answered… Would the court reporter please read the testimony back to us? It's just a handful of questions."

The stenographer checked her computer monitor and frowned. She then checked the printed readout from her stenotype, and her jaw dropped.

"I… I'm sorry, I can't," she said. "I typed everything that was said, but the readouts just say 'RevengeRevengeRevengeRevengeRevenge' on and on and on."

Goosebumps broke out on Christine's arms. Erik eyed the shadows on the wall.

Actually, the light did reflect strangely on the walls, as though the beige paint had broken out in tiny blisters from floor to ceiling. Blisters as red as blood.

And they were growing.

"What… What's happening to the walls?" Christine asked.

The boils swelled until too heavy, and then thick, red fluid trickled down in countless streams.

"They're bleeding!" Rosenbaum shouted. "My God, the walls are bleeding!"

More lightning. More thunder. The banshee wind picked up again, shaking the windows for a full half-minute and making the miniblinds rattle like a pile of bones. The florescent light zapped and pulsed in a growing frenzy, as though the ancient bulbs were about to explode in a shower of sparks.

And as if this were a signal, shadows streamed from all sides and corners and gathered in the middle of the room above the conference table. In that black mass, Christine thought she saw the translucent, twisted faces of the long-dead; corpses whose eyes were dried out jelly, whose noses and ears were shrunken nubs on their dirty skulls. They turned collectively towards Erik, who hunched over the table cringing from noises that only he could hear.

"No!" she shouted.

But the phantoms had only one commander, and they flew to him now like metal shavings to a magnet. They flew straight _through_ him one by one, with a force that pushed him off his chair and suspended him above the flags against the wall.

Rosenbaum and the stenographer fled the room.

Christine leapt from her chair and watched in helpless horror as Erik was dragged towards the ceiling, smearing the wallblood as if he were a rag, until his wingtip shoes dangled above the gold letters IN GOD WE TRUST. Then the last spirit flew through his body, and as though his wire had been cut, he fell to the floor.

"Erik!"

The florescent bulbs ceased flickering, and glowed silently with a steady, bright light.

She hurried to where he lay. Blood trickled from his nose and the grimacing side of his mouth. His hands and hair were streaked with gore.

"Erik! Erik, _open your eyes_!"

His ubiquitous red rose corsage was now a shock of white on his tattered suit.


	17. Preponderance of the Evidence

Chapter 17: Preponderance of the Evidence

Erik wasn't moving. Christine could hardly think, her heart torn to pieces. She mopped his bloody face with her sleeve.

"Please, God. Oh, God, _please_!"

His eyelids fluttered. His gray irises rolled towards the sound of her voice then rolled back in his head. He groaned weakly, and bright, red blood bubbled from his mouth.

"Erik!"

His chest rose and fell rapidly. His fingers curled and tensed into claws, his elbows bent and his arms stiffened in unnatural angles. His body trembled.

Was this a medical emergency, or a supernatural crisis? Should she take him to an exorcism? She got under his left arm and tried to pull him up. He wouldn't stand. He was like a dead weight. Her shoes slipped in smears of blood.

Rapid footsteps echoed in the hallway. Someone was coming.

She gasped. How would she explain this to the cops? They would insist on taking Erik to a hospital. She was losing time.

Nasr Khan, dressed in a suit, rushed into the conference room and paused. His eyes widened at the overturned chairs and the blood streaks on the walls and the general mess.

"Mr. Khan! Help!"

He started at the sound of her voice. She and Erik were barely visible behind the conference table. He hurried over to them. Found his friend in the throes of what looked like an agonizing seizure.

"Erik! Oh, my God. We have to get him home. His circle—"

"We won't get him out of here looking like this. People will ask questions." Erik was painted with drying blood. His chin was coated in it, his hair was matted with it, his clawed hands and his entire back were streaked with it. She lit on an idea. "There's a trench coat. I saw it in the waiting room. And a fedora. Maybe they're still out there."

Khan rushed back down the hall and returned with the clothes. Together they got Erik dressed, though it wasn't easy with his stiff, bent arms. She raised the coat's wide collar to hide the judge's face, and Khan angled the fedora over his brow.

Another moan escaped Erik's throat, ending on a ghastly, nauseating gurgle.

"We need a cab," Khan said.

"He has a car. A black Volvo sedan." She fished in Erik's pants pockets for his set of keys.

"But where did he park?"

She found the keys, along with a parking validation ticket. "It's that parking lot down the block. He wrote the number 3 on the ticket; maybe he parked on the third floor?"

"Let's get him outside first. I'll get the car and pick you up."

* * *

Khan cursed behind the wheel as someone cut him off in traffic. He leaned on the horn.

Christine held Erik steady in the back seat and wiped more blood from his nose. Blood was also seeping from the corners of his dark eyes, sliding along his scars and falling onto her suit like gruesome tears. His eyes still rolled in their sockets. He still moaned in agony, and his hands were still curled in stiff, shaking claws.

Her judge might really die. And it would be the end of her world.

She eyed the traffic through the rain-mottled windshield. "You can't go faster?"

"Can't risk getting stopped by a cop," answered Khan. "I'm a convicted felon driving a judge's car. With the judge bloody and unconscious in the back seat. Just sit tight; we're almost at the bridge. Keep him warm." He turned up the heat.

"He should have recused," she said bitterly. "He could have stayed safe in his circle instead of coming to Manhattan for an inquest. But he just had to prove he's always fair."

Khan smiled at her in the rearview mirror. "I don't believe him. He hasn't been impartial with you in years. Remember how many adjournments he gave you on your case against Sherman Katz a few years ago? And when he talked to you in the hall after you lost against Chris Murphy?"

"You knew about all that?"

"Everyone knew."

Heat bloomed in her cheeks. "But… Those cases were a long time ago. We weren't together until around the time of the Post article."

Khan chuckled and steered the car up the ramp to the Willis Avenue bridge. Rain gusted over the windshield in sheets. "Don't worry, you're still a good lawyer, notwithstanding the extra help. That's probably what got his attention in the first place. He's not the sort to risk his career just to help a cute girl. He saw your compassion for the poor, and he saw your potential."

Erik's neck had begun to twitch, making it hard for her to keep the fedora from falling off his head. She pulled the hat down more firmly.

"He inspired me more than he knows. He's the reason I studied law." She wiped her eyes. "I once watched my father testify in Erik's court. Dad was a fire marshal, I went to watch him during spring break. Erik was so… so intelligent, but also very down to earth. Treated everyone respectfully, even the arsonist on trial. Lots of people—even judges—see someone living in poverty and think he somehow deserves it. But Erik had a completely open mind. No prejudices. I wanted a career helping people, and after watching Judge Delgado, I started thinking I should practice law."

Khan was quiet as they crossed the bridge and entered The Bronx. The windshield wipers beat a pensive rhythm on the glass.

"That's an interesting coincidence, isn't it?" he finally said. "Your father testified against arsonists, and the Post reporter was apparently murdered by one."

"...You think there's a connection?"

"There could be. It was definitely premeditated arson. They're saying he probably got through the metal detectors with just matches and some Banaca. What was his name?—Your father's, I mean."

"George Dale."

"I'll have some friends in the force cross-check his investigations with Erik's cases, and see what I get."

"And I have the name of the Post's source. A private investigator got it for me." She rummaged in her purse for her cellphone and re-read the text. "Deshawn Brown?"

Khan gave a low whistle.

"You know him?"

"Everyone's heard of Deshawn Brown," Khan replied. "You haven't? He went to prison for murder eight or nine years ago. He set his car on fire with his girlfriend locked inside. You were probably still away at college."

"Was Erik the trial judge?"

He nodded. "And I bet your father testified. And I bet Brown found out you were your father's daughter, and when he saw you with Erik the night of the reception, he thought of payback against both the fire marshal and the judge."

"The Post reporter must have figured out the connection, and was on his way to talk to Erik about it when Brown got to him first. But if Brown went to prison, then how—"

"Either he's on parole or he finished serving his sentence. If he escaped from prison, I'm sure it would've been in the news. We've got to get the police. I know a detective—well, he's now a lieutenant—in Erik's precinct. I'll take you and Erik to the house and then pay this guy a visit."


	18. Contempt of Court

Chapter 18: Contempt of Court

Christine pulled the heavy damask curtains closed in Erik's spare bedroom. In the near-darkness, she watched Erik where he lay, very still now, in his circle of power. After peeling him out of his wet trench coat and fedora, she and Khan had laid him on his back, his head at the summit of the pentacle. His breathing had steadied as soon as they'd carried him into the circle, and his clawed fingers had relaxed. Khan had left for the precinct.

The only sound was the ceaseless sighing of the rain.

Erik's large, dark eyes opened halfway and slowly closed again. His lofty forehead furrowed and his eyebrows knit above his nose. Again his eyelids lifted. He blinked and stared into oblivion, then his flinty irises flashed in the dim light as he carefully examined his surroundings. With a groan, he propped himself up on his shaking elbows—but froze when he spied Christine, still standing by his window.

She was in shambles: her suit was soaked, her hair disheveled and matted by the rain and smeared with Erik's blood. And she'd forgotten to breathe. Her judge lived.

They stared at each other as the memories of that morning came back to him.

"Christine," he whispered reverently. "You—" He nearly choked on his own words, and a coughing fit stole his breath.

She grabbed a glass of water that she'd left on the console table, and hurried to his side. Held the glass to his dusky lips while he drank. Water missed his mouth and ran down his neck. His chin and lips were caked with dried blood, like a vampire who had feasted.

He pulled back from the glass and gasped for breath. His long fingers wiped the water from his face, and crusty, dried blood rasped his hand like whiskers in need of a shave.

"Ugh, I'm a mess," he groaned, and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. He wet it with water from the glass and mopped his face. "_Más de lo usual._"

She said nothing but knelt by his feet. He was alive.

He scrubbed the back of his neck, then sat admiring her in confusion. "You saved my life," he said, amazed. "When everyone ran away, you stayed."

"I couldn't leave you like that."

She _had_ left him before. She winced.

"How did you manage it?"

She explained the serendipitous appearance of Khan, and their struggles to get Erik out to his car. Erik listened quietly. He looked tired, but no longer seemed to be suffering. It was a miracle.

"I think I owe Khan an apology for my earlier suspicions."

"I've been a poor judge of character lately, too."

Their eyes met. Then his brow furrowed as he recalled something else. "Your testimony today…"

Her cheeks blazed, and she lowered her eyes. There wasn't much light to see by, but he must have seen her whole face flush a very deep red.

"You told the truth?"

He knew she had. She had taken an oath; had incriminated them both with her admissions. "I swore before God."

Heavy rain pelted the windows and filled the silence between them.

"You'll need to recuse, after what I told them," she finally ventured. "There's no transcript, but Rosenbaum heard what I said—"

"But you didn't say there was anything between us. Nothing he heard would lead him to conclude that I am anything but impartial."

She knew he prevaricated: _Rosenbaum_ wouldn't conclude… but maybe _Erik Delgado_ was reconsidering his own assessment. At least he sounded less certain. But now wasn't the time to press him. "They'll definitely want us back," was all she said, "since Rosenbaum didn't finish."

"Yes, my spirits interrupted Teddy, didn't they? They're getting impatient. They won't wait much longer."

He struggled to his feet and made to leave the circle.

"Where are you going?" she cried, detaining him by the wrist.

"To prepare a summons. So I can release these souls."

As if at his words, the wind picked up and shook the windows against their frames.

He kissed her fingers that circled his wrist. "I don't have the words to thank you, but it's time for you to go. I have to do this."

"Stay where you are," she ordered him. "If there's anything to be done outside that circle, I'll do it."

"This isn't civil procedure," he said. "This is Evil. This is Damnation. You were right to run when you first found this room. You shouldn't be here. I never meant for you to even know about it. About any of this."

"Erik, the minute you leave that circle, those souls will jump you again. They're practically knocking on your door! Let me help. I'm not running."

He raked his hand through his hair and looked around as though he could find his next argument hidden in the folds of his drapes. At last he nodded. "Open the top right drawer of the console." He lifted his chin towards the table behind her, beneath his mother's wedding portrait. "There's a lighter in there, and a brass box of incense. Light a handful of cones and toss them in the brazier."

The little drawer slid out easily, as though well-used, and she quickly found the white cigarette lighter and the large brass box, which was about the size of a cereal bowl and ornately engraved with Freemason symbols: hexagrams surrounding a square and compass and an all-seeing eye. The pile of pungent cones inside were the dark brown of rich soil.

She was shaking so badly from the day's ordeal that it took a dozen tries to ignite the lighter. Then its flashing flame nearly blinded her in the dark room. She lit the cones, and bluish smoke rose and curled like ephemeral spirits. Soon a strong, earthen musk pervaded the room.

"The left drawer has a false bottom with a little leather bag inside. Bring it to me, please."

The mottled, antique leather was old and stiff and very dry, like something stolen from a crypt. Like a little bag of death. She passed it to him quickly, and watched him kneel and lay its contents on the floor inside the circle: another odd assortment of ancient and modern. First a salt shaker, same as at any diner or pizza counter. Then a tiny, crystal decanter like a small bottle of cologne, engraved on one side with a simple, gold crucifix. In the dim light, she couldn't tell how much holy water was inside. Last was a 5" X 3" notebook with a leather cover, its yellowed pages soft with age. Khan had said that the Freak Show kept a journal of all of their incantations and summoned subjects. She had no desire to read that grimoire.

Erik unscrewed the top of the shaker and began generously shaking salt around the perimeter of his circle. "Light the tall candle on the table," he called over his shoulder, "the one in the glass cylinder, and pass it to me too, please."

He screwed the top back on the shaker and shoved it back into the leather bag, then took the candle from her. The flame scattered shadows against the walls and illuminated his face from below, as though he were about to spin a scary campfire yarn. "Now, leave."

"What?!"

"Get as far away as possible. Go home, or better yet find a church and stay there for the next several hours."

"But… you can't do this by yourself!"

"Of course I can—"

"It hasn't worked! Khan thinks… He said I should help you."

"I won't let you risk—"

"I'll be in the circle. With you. I'll be safe there."

"No, the spirits might fool us into leaving the circle's safety. Then they could kill us, or possess our bodies or take our souls."

"Erik, I love you. I'm not leaving you to do this alone. Whatever danger you're in, I'll share it. Willingly."

"You don't know what you're saying. I'm _damned_! Even pagans will tell you this is _black_ magic. Disturbing the dead is the Devil's work. He has me, now. I will not share my sin… I won't… I won't let you be condemned, too." His last words were spoken with more sadness and desperation than she'd ever heard in the judge's voice before.

"Make room." She stepped carefully over the salt and joined him inside the circle.

"Christine—No."

"Well, if you're not going to get started, I'll have to do it myself." She opened his journal and glimpsed an entire page of Latin before he snatched it back from her.

"Please. Don't do this."

"If our situations were reversed, and I were damned, would you leave me?"

He scowled, as though he were on his bench in court instead of standing inside a Circle of Power holding a candle in a dark room full of incense. "Once we start, you won't be able to leave until it's finished. No adjournments."

"I understand."

"Don't move, and don't say a word. Definitely don't ask any questions. And for the sake of your _soul_, Christine, don't look behind you. Stand right here." He held her by the shoulders and shifted her into place, her back to the console table. "Face me. Hold the book like this." He put it in her hands, raised her hands to her chest, and turned her wrists until the book was facing out so that he could read it.

"Can you stay like that without shaking, and without dropping it?"

She opened her mouth to answer, remembered his instructions, and nodded instead.

"Good. But let's sit down, because we'll be here a long, long time. Don't disturb the salt! There. Now we can proceed." He pulled a sturdy glasses case from his jacket pocket and removed his spotless, undamaged horn-rimmed spectacles. These he placed on his nose, then knelt before her with the candle held high in his left hand, the opened flask of holy water in the other by his heart, and cleared his throat. In his black suit, he looked like a solemn priest performing a liturgy.

Reading from the grimoire, he commenced a Latin invocation which she had never heard. He spoke _sotto voce_ as if he were in court, with the same grave manners, but these combined with the toneless Latin made her hairs stand on end. She felt the room grow colder and colder. His eyes were dark sockets in the gilded light of the candle flame, his scars covered his face in bizarre shadows over a terrifying, expressionless mask.

Outside, the rain slapped the window glass and the wind howled.

His chanted Latin continued its mechanical cadence like a sinister march. Then he paused, set the candle on the floor, and turned the page. With his eyes on his cursive handwriting, he pursed his twisted lips, took a deep breath, and recited a single phrase.

A shriek of rage burst behind Christine's skull. She nearly dropped the grimoire. It was the loudest, angriest scream she'd ever heard, and it went on and on until she feared she would lose her mind. The smell of rich incense turned to putrid sulfur, and she gagged. Malevolence emerged in the space behind her, between Erik's circle and the table with the smoking brazier. She felt its wrath deep within her own soul, a powerful and frightening being that made her want to flee the room. Was it coming for them, the way it had attacked Erik at the CJC? It took all of her willpower not to look over her shoulder.

"Keep your eyes on me, Christine," Erik whispered calmly. "Everything will be all right. It's just very upset with me. I won't let it hurt you."

She was trembling. She'd promised him she wouldn't, but she was. She was shaking so hard that he couldn't read. He didn't rebuke her; he kept his solemn demeanor as he steadied her hand with his own and continued.

He recited more Latin and the shriek behind her ceased.

He turned a page.

Behind her, the spirit moaned softly.

Erik watched the spirit over the rims of his spectacles, his eyes focused at something above Christine's head. His jaw clenched. His eyes met hers, and had she not already been sitting she would have lost the strength to stand. Lit from the candle on the floor, his dark eyes appeared to have their own commanding fire.

Had he ordered her to rise, she would have levitated.

Still holding the flask, he stood tall and spat another injunction at the spirit before flicking the holy water across the room, dropping some on Christine's ear in the process.

All sounds ceased. The spirit was gone, or at least now it was absolutely silent. Even the wind and rain seemed hushed. Christine only heard Erik's ragged breathing, and her own pulse pounding in her ears.

Still standing, he lifted the candle and made the sign of the cross, "_Quia tuum est regnum, et potéstas, et glória in sáecula_. Amen." Then he moved the candle as though drawing a large pentagram in the air, lifting the candle high above his head and across his chest. The trailing flame left a brief, glowing star in the darkness between them. He then recited a word in such a voice, with such tone, as she hadn't thought possible. The vibrations shook the floor.

As for what he said, it didn't sound like Latin. It may have been Hebrew, but could have been Babylonian or Sumatran for all she knew.

He then turned to his right, repeated the pentagram with the candle, and another strange word. Again he turned to his right, so that now his back was to her. Another pentagram, a different word. He turned again, repeated. North, east, south, and west, until he was back facing her. Then he set the candle on the floor at his feet and stood with his arms stretched to either side like he was being crucified. He shut his eyes and invoked the archangels each by name.

The air trembled.

"About me flames the pentagrams," he concluded, "and in the column shines the six-rayed star."

It could have been her imagination, but at the conclusion of his strange invocation, the four pentagrams flashed again before her eyes, and light extended from his fingers. She blinked, and these lights vanished.

He dropped his arms, opened his eyes, and looked around the room. Shadows danced on the walls in the frightful, copper light of the candle flame. Wind whistled outside and slapped rain against his windows. There was no sign of the spirit he had summoned.

Remembering his instruction to stay silent, she watched and said nothing.

He knelt down with her. "Are you alright?"

She nodded.

"It came a little too close for my liking. Sit towards me, away from the edge of the circle. That's better, I think. One down," he said, turning the pages back to the beginning. "Sixty-some-odd more to go."

A sharp crack from behind her rent the silence, and the portrait of Erik's mother slid down the wall until the table halted its decent and it broke free of its frame. His heavy curtains billowed into the room as though from a strong wind, but his windows were still closed. The console table began to shake by itself, and everything on top of it rattled.

Too late, Christine realized she'd turned to look.

Erik's expression darkened, as if an uncooperative litigant disrupted the order of his courtroom. "Don't be afraid," he whispered. "It's just that they all want to be first to go. They have no patience! And the spirit we just banished is still here."

He sounded less calm, less like the confident jurist who'd commenced this bizarre proceeding. She had a bad feeling that they'd made a fatal miscalculation and were now trapped inside his circle.

A ceaseless knocking came from the wall behind her, answered by more knocking on every other wall, surrounding them. The sounds multiplied until they had a cacophony of dissonant knocks, as though seventy gavels banged in judgment against the one who had disturbed their rest.

"Oh, God," said Erik, "what have I done?"


	19. Mass Arraignment

Chapter 19: Mass Arraignment

"Keep your eyes on me," Erik said as he turned her head away from the pandemonium.

He sat cross-legged facing her, his candle and flask on the floor. He took the grimoire from her hands and flipped through the pages.

"Has this happened before?" she asked him.

"No, never. I don't know what I did wrong." He frowned down at the book. "I did everything exactly, perfectly correct. Just as I did thirty years ago. The pentagrams go in a certain direction—and they have to be completely closed…" He stared up into nothing and struggled for a solution.

The quaking console table shed roses and candles in all directions. It was hard to think with all the knocking in the walls.

"Well, what happened when you tried this before?" she asked. "I mean lately."

He shrugged. "_Nada_. No spirit even showed."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not. I think… I think they're here because of you."

"Me! I only held your book."

"Well, perhaps you inspire me. I didn't try much on my own, to be honest. I—I mostly prayed instead." He raked shaking fingers through his hair. "This isn't my favorite thing to do."

"I know." She straightened his gore-streaked necktie. "Try not to think of the past. You're not going to hurt them this time; you're the only one who can save them. It's like… seventy wrongly-convicted felons need your exoneration."

"Well, I wish I could give it to them! I don't know how. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I did everything the way I'm supposed to."

"Then you're _not_ wrong! You're right. You just have to make them listen to you."

"I _can't_, Christine! I'm just a novice. I'm in over my head."

"Bullshit. You have a gift. How'd these souls awaken thirty years ago? You did it, on your first try. You've just got to do this on your own terms. Think outside the rules. The laws never box you in as a judge. All that matters is that justice is served." She took the candle and flask from the floor and thrust them into his hands. "Court's in session. Take the bench, Your Honor."

He sat before her holding the tools of his dark art while chaos continued around them.

At last he took action and returned to the grimoire. He tore out a couple of blank pages from the back of the book. "We'll have a mass arraignment," he said, pulling a ballpoint pen from his inside jacket pocket. "I'll summon everyone at once."

And with intense concentration despite the noise, he copied all seventy names from the journal exactly as they had been written thirty years ago by his younger hand. Then he folded the pages like an envelope so that none of the names were facing out.

"Hold this closed for me, please."

While she pressed her fingers over the seam of his pages, he stripped off his suit jacket. A pistol hung from a holster under his left arm, which startled her so much that she forgot what was happening. She never realized he packed heat. Given their recent experiences, the extra protection made sense, but it was no help at all in their present situation.

He hadn't noticed her alarm. He opened his cuff links and rolled up his sleeves. Then he reached into the little leather bag and frightened her further by producing a nine-inch stiletto switchblade with a bone-white handle.

Her eyes widened._ Those are illegal!_

He sprung open the blade and sterilized it over the candle flame, then passed the candle to her.

"When I tell you, tip the candle and let the wax fall on the paper to seal it."

Before she could ask him what the hell he was doing with a switchblade, he dragged the point across the palm of his left hand and grunted in pain. Held his fist over the folded paper, and the first drops of blood fell onto the seam. She moved her fingers out of the way.

"Now, the wax."

She tipped the candle, and hot, white wax mixed with his blood to seal the pages. Suddenly he grabbed the candle from her and dripped wax on his own hand to seal his wound.

"There," he said, flexing and flailing his cut hand. "Now they're bound to my will. Just like the first time."

"You mean you cut yourself every time you performed a summons for your friends?!"

He shrugged. "It doesn't work otherwise. They're probably still bound to me from the first time, but doing it again might help." He stood and tossed the wax-sealed packet out of the circle. It landed in front of the shuddering console table, inside a triangle etched into his floor. "Now we get to work."

They knelt again in the circle, she showed him the grimoire while he held the candle and holy water and recited the Latin. He had to raise his voice over the constant knocking in the walls. He turned the page and read all the names aloud, one after the other.

The temperature in the room dropped until his breath left his lips in wispy plumes. Her ears and fingers grew numb. In the deep shadows by the window, the telescope spun slowly on its tripod.

The knocking stopped.

With a whoosh and a flash of light, the packet of names on the floor combusted in green flames that reached halfway to the ceiling.

Erik screamed as his cut hand caught fire as well. The flask of holy water shattered on the floor; the candle fell from his fingers and rolled out of the circle before she could catch it. He pulled his bloody handkerchief from his pocket with his other hand and smothered the flame. Wrapped the handkerchief around his palm. His twisted features tensed with restrained temper.

In the sudden silence, she could hear the incense sizzle in the brazier behind her. Heavy smoke carpeted the floor.

The candle was still burning where the wall had stopped its roll. Erik crawled to the edge of the circle and reached for it.

"Erik, no!" she cried, breaking her oath of silence. "You can't!"

"I need it."

"Maybe it's just a prop." She pulled him back. "Like your gavel. You can still take control without it."

The candle's flame guttered and went out.

"Your words have real power. You just need to issue the order." She dipped her fingers in the holy water soaking into the floor, then traced them over his distorted lips. "God works through your words."

He smiled warmly at her. Kissed her mouth with his wet lips. "_Igual_."

He stood and held the open grimoire. From the look on his face, there was no mistaking that his command was law both on Earth and in the next world. The folded list of names still burned, and by the light of those unnatural, green flames he issued his final order, in a thunderous voice that brooked no argument. As he completed his command, he raised his right arm high and pointed towards Heaven.

Fierce, howling wind spun in cyclones towards the burning packet, blowing white roses everywhere and all but ripping the damask curtains from their rungs. His telescope spun out of control. The low-lying smoke whipped up before their eyes and obscured the dark room in further shadow.

The triangle etched on his floor in front of the console table erupted in pure, blue light that reminded her of his once cornflower-colored corsage. The light climbed in a column to the ceiling, where blinding white light poured down as if someone opened a trap door in the attic. It hurt her eyes, but she didn't want to turn away. Spirits soared heavenward within the blue column, and they were no longer the loathsome corpses that she had seen at the CJC. These were the peaceful, shining faces of redeemed souls. They danced like fireflies in the column of light and rose through the portal that'd opened in Erik's ceiling into the Next world.

Faint, irregular chimes accompanied their dance. It was beautiful, mesmerizing, like a distant harp. The spirits, she realized, were laughing and cheering.

She rose on shaking legs and put her arm through Erik's.

As the last spirit passed, the column rolled up behind it, and then spirit and column and cyclone all passed through the blinding portal, which closed silently behind them, leaving Christine and Erik in the dark.

The rain crackled distantly. She choked in the lingering, acrid smoke.

He fell at her feet. "My Portia! My sorceress! You blew them away with your charm. 'I stand indebted, over and above, in love and service to you evermore.'" He kissed her ankles. "But let me complete the banishing ritual just in case."

She couldn't see what he was doing, but as she listened, she remembered the sign of the cross and then the pentagrams in the four cardinal directions and then his invocation of the archangels and his strange finale: "About me flames the pentagrams, and in the column shines the six-rayed star."

Even without his candle, his pentagrams flashed in the smoky haze before she was again plunged into darkness.

He coughed and pulled open the curtains. Apparently, he was in no more danger outside of his circle. Despite the distant sound of constant rain, tranquil afternoon light illuminated his disorderly room: roses and ashes strewn all over the floor, his candle burned out in its cracked cylinder against the wall, his mother's picture divorced from its shattered frame. There were scorch marks within the triangle etched on his floor, and on the ceiling above it. A pall of smoke hung over the scene.

He heaved open the windows and shrugged back into his jacket. In the haze, he was only a smoky silhouette before the window.

"Your hand!" she cried suddenly. "Is it all right?"

"It hurts like hell," he croaked, his voice raspy from the pervasive smoke. "But—" He choked again on the smoke, wracked with coughs that had him doubled over. "Gah! Phew! This smoke's getting worse."

Which didn't make any sense, because there wasn't any fire. Not even an ember of incense smoldered in his brazier. Still trembling, she went to turn on the light.

She gasped when her palm found the wall. "The wall is hot! The wall is burning hot!" She glanced to the door, saw it framed in a thin line of orange light, saw more smoke seeping in from the top… And a terrible realization sank into her soul. The smoke, the distant roaring that she mistook for rain… "Erik! The house is on fire!"


	20. Plea Colloquy

Chapter 20: Plea Colloquy

"The house is really on fire!" Christine cried.

_That explains the smoke_. Delgado peered out the window: it was a long way down, and thorny rosebushes grew along the foundation. Couldn't he save Christine's life without breaking her bones?

While he investigated the window, she tapped the doorknob with her fingertip to check the temperature. Cracked open the door, and the distant roar, which he'd assumed was the wind outside, grew louder. Definitely an uncontrolled fire. A bonfire of his vanities.

"It's only in the living room," she said as she peeked down the hall, "and hasn't reached the stairs—Come on!"

There was no time to argue. The fire marshal's daughter was already making a break for it. He hurried to catch up.

Above the stairwell, the smoke was black and thick. He could barely see his ceiling. The smell was ridiculously awful, like burning hair, and every breath scalded from his nostrils down his throat. Even his eyes burned. He nearly doubled over as he descended the stairs, staying below the greasy smoke.

Angry orange flames enveloped the front of his house. His wallpaper burned off the plaster walls in bits of black ash that sailed in thermal updrafts. His mother's furniture now resembled glowing firewood. There was no sign of the lace curtains that'd hung over his picture window—they'd already incinerated. The heat was so fierce he felt as though it cooked his flesh.

Why hadn't any of his alarms activated?

"Back door?" she asked.

He choked. "Through the kitchen."

They ran through his roasting parlor and past the entrance to the dining room. She was just ahead of him, and he saw what happened to her as though it transpired in slow motion: her pace slackened as she reached the kitchen, she turned to make sure he followed—then a black arm, thick and muscular, wrapped around her throat and pulled her backwards into his kitchen.

She screamed.

The sound awakened something primal inside him. He burst into the kitchen ready to tear the house down himself. Reached under his left arm for his Glock—

"Stay back, or she dies," said a voice by his refrigerator. A burly black man in an undershirt and jeans held Christine in a chokehold—and a pistol to her temple. His cold, wide eyes were laser-focused on Delgado.

The judge froze and showed his empty hands.

"Please!" Christine gasped. "There's a fire! We need to—"

"Shut up!" The man pushed the gun deeper into her skull.

Delgado's mind raced. If this man had planned to attack them, he would have surprised them upstairs. He must have thought the house was empty, and he was as unprepared for them as they were for him. And his features were familiar: that brutal voice, those pitiless eyes, that tight, dangerous set of the jaw… Delgado had presided over hundreds of criminal cases, and too many faces were burned into his memory.

"Mr. Brown, isn't it?" he asked with a nervous smile. "Did we interrupt your work? You can still get away before the responders arrive. We won't say we saw you."

Brown shook his head without emotion. "Can't do that."

"Then at least let her go. I'm the one you want." Delgado moved to take her place.

"I said _stay back_!" His forearm flexed as he pressed the gun to Christine's face, pushing her head a little to the side.

Delgado backed off, kept his hands in view. "Okay, okay. Well, then… What can I do for you?"

He nodded at the kitchen table. "Write me an exoneration."

"I'll do it outside. The fire—"

"_Now_, motherfucker! Or this bitch's brains come out!"

Write with _what_, though? The only paper in his kitchen was the handful of junk mail on the table. He grabbed a return envelope from some credit card promotion, with only a P.O. box for the address and a little outline where the stamp goes with the words: "No postage necessary if mailed in the United States." He flipped over the envelope, pulled a ballpoint pen from inside his jacket, and quickly wrote a one-sentence order. It wasn't legitimate; he'd made it under duress. He signed, turned around to demand Christine's release—

Realized Brown's gun was facing him just as it fired.

The crack of the gun blended into Christine's scream.

Pain exploded in Delgado's chest, and then he felt and heard nothing more.

* * *

"No!" She couldn't hear her own scream as the gun fired by her ear.

Erik collapsed as though his legs broke beneath him. The back of his head knocked onto the tiled floor with a sickening crack. He didn't move.

"Erik!"

The gun dug into her head again. "I said shut up."

"Damn you! You got what you wanted—"

Brown whipped the pistol against her skull, hard enough to slam her head against the fridge. Her ears rang. Her head hurt from both sides. She was so dazed, she could hardly stand.

He grabbed her hair near the roots, and her scalp ignited in pain as he dragged her by the hair away from Erik and towards the fire. She struggled, twisted feebly in his grip, dug her heels into the floor. Clawed desperately at his fist full of her hair. Screamed. She had nothing to lose—if she didn't get free, she would die. The house was about to explode in a flashover. Already the heat weakened her lungs; she couldn't catch her breath—

Recognizing the same signs, the arsonist shot at Erik's front window until it shattered. Cooler air rushed into the room and brought down the temperature, but the fire spread more quickly while feeding on the extra oxygen.

Brown lifted her by the hair and punched her straight in the face.

Her world went black.

When her eyes opened a few moments later, he was dragging her by the hair back to the kitchen. Her face felt broken and swollen, and warm blood oozed from her nose and over her lips. She had no strength to resist; she could barely even see straight. Her left wrist was tied tightly with an electric cord, and a long piece of it dragged along behind her. Brown's other hand held something that looked like a table lamp, still attached to the cord around her wrist.

She couldn't see his gun; he'd probably put it in his waistband on his opposite side.

All of these observations happened in a flash. They were back in the kitchen before she'd even thought to untie her wrist. He tore open the cabinet under the kitchen sink, shoved her onto her knees facing out into the kitchen. Yanked on the electric cord tied to her wrist, which pulled her arm behind her until she was looped around the plumbing. He was directly in front of her, his entire weight held her down. She could see nothing but his chest pressed against her tender, swollen face. In that position, he began to tie her wrists together.

"Your daddy can't save you now, bitch," he hissed in her ear as he worked. "You're gonna watch your boyfriend burn. Watch his ugly face melt right off—"

_ BAM!_

She screamed at the sudden noise. With Brown in front of her, she had no idea what was happening. A gas explosion? A collapse?

He stiffened, then slumped against her. Something wet and warm dribbled down her neck—he was drooling bright red blood. His body slowly tilted to the side until he fell over.

Erik lay on his back by the kitchen table, his two hands aiming his pistol between his bent knees at Brown. If looks could kill, he wouldn't have had to shoot.

"Erik! Oh, my God." She freed her half-tied wrist. Pushed Brown out of her way. Crawled to where Erik lay, while the lamp still tied to her left wrist dragged beside her. "I thought you were dead! Did he get you?"

He'd returned his gun to its holster and laid his head back on the floor. His breath came in short, shallow gasps. "My chest… On the left. _Ay_, it fucking hurts…"

A hole tore through his suit jacket on his left side. She loosened his tie and then split open his dress shirt, popping off buttons in every direction.

Sirens screamed faintly from the expressway.

Dark hair peppered his pectorals around brown nipples and grew in a dense line down his stomach, continuing beneath his belt. In the middle of his chest on his left side was a dark, ugly bruise about the size of a pocket watch. She ran her fingers lightly over the bruise. He grunted in pain, but she couldn't feel any break in his skin.

She almost laughed with relief. "There's no blood… Erik, it's just a big bruise."

He stared down at his bared chest and knit his brows. Wincing again, he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a mangled piece of bronze. The flattened bullet had melded into the center of it, and her locket was bent concave.

_So that's where my locket went! _ She released the breath she'd been holding. The locket blurred as tears filled her eyes.

"I literally can't live without you," he quipped.

A quiet laugh escaped her lips. She began to cry.

He brushed away her tears with his kerchief-bandaged hand, and she flinched. Even his light touch stung her swollen face. "Look what I've done to you, _mi_ _amada_. You're starting to look like me. A younger, white version of me." He pointed to where her split lip swelled in a mirror image of his permanent sneer.

The sirens grew steadily closer—and so did the fire. His stairwell collapsed in a thundering crash.

He pressed the locket into her hand and closed her fingers around it. "Something to remember me."

"What are you talking about? I'll get you out of here—"

"But I can't put you through this anymore. Brown wasn't the first defendant to hurt me. He wasn't even the _tenth_. Your life's in danger with me. I'm not exaggerating. And what about your career helping the poor? If the responders find you here with me, in my house, and my clothes halfway off, we'll both lose our licenses. You'll lose everything, for what?— for a guy so busy, he pretty much lives at the courthouse. You'll have no good with me, Christine; I'll just be an ugly pain in your ass. That's not the life you deserve."

In a sense, he was right. Her love had wrecked her life. As much as she harassed him over his recent lack of objectivity, she hadn't really considered her own. They were both in shambles, their clothes tattered and their broken bodies covered in cuts and bruises. His house was coming down around them, to say nothing of her job and reputation and her friendship with Raoul. And had she actually risked losing her soul, too? Here was all the evidence laid out before her: she would suffer anything for him.

She kissed him on his broad forehead, and her bloody lips left a perfect lipstick kiss above his brow. Smiling down at her eccentric judge whom she loved beyond reason, she shook her head and whispered: "_Vale la pena_."

**a/n: Only one more chapter to go! Thanks so much to those of you who left reviews and/ or sent me commentary in private messages. This website gives me traffic stats, and there's almost a hundred people reading the story every week! But only a handful of regular reviews? Do the rest of you work for the Office of Court Administration, and don't want to put an appearance on the record?**


	21. Recusal

**a/n: This is obviously a fictional court order. If you landed here while searching for caselaw on _People v. Moreno_, you're in a strange place!-but don't leave yet, you might learn something... But start from chapter 1, so you can understand the context of the decision below.**

Chapter 21: Recusal

CIVIL COURT, BRONX COUNTY  
ORDER OF JUDICIAL DISQUALIFICATION

* * *

FORDHAM REALTY

v.

BIANCA ALBRIZZIO

* * *

Petitioner moves this Court for an order of judicial disqualification recusing Judge Erik R. Delgado from this holdover proceeding. Petitioner alleges that recusal is mandatory due to my romantic relationship with a member of Respondent's firm, who has appeared on the case. Although the law does not compel me to recuse, for the following reasons the motion is hereby granted.

The _objective_ grounds for judicial disqualification are set forth in New York Judiciary Law § 14. In short, the rule states that a judge must recuse only in four instances: (1) if the he is a party in the case; (2) if he was previously an attorney for either party in the case; (3) if he has an interest in the outcome; or (4) if he is related by blood or marriage to any of the parties. None of these circumstances exist in the present case. While Petitioner alleges that I have an "interest" in the case, in fact I have no "pecuniary or property right" from which I might profit or lose as a consequence of the outcome of these proceedings. _See In re Estate of Sherburne_, 476 N.Y.S.2d 419, 421 (Qns County Sur. Ct. 1984). These are the only mandatory grounds for judicial disqualification. Outside of these circumstances, it is well-established in the state of New York that the judge himself "is the sole arbiter" of whether he is improperly biased. _People v. Moreno_, 70 N.Y.2d 403, 406 (1987), citing _People v Patrick_, 183 N.Y. 52, 54 (1905)(refusing to disqualify a judge whose own son had participated in the case as subordinate counsel). In the instant case, therefore, the law does not compel me to recuse.

There are, however, _discretionary_ grounds for judicial disqualification that are worth considering. The New York Rules of the Chief Administrative Judge §100.3(E)(1) provides for recusal in circumstances "in which the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned." In such cases, a judge may decide, at his own discretion, to recuse himself either because of actual partiality or because a challenge to his objectivity would still be reasonable, though mistaken. _See_ _Moreno_, 70 N.Y.2d 403, 406. As this rule is discretionary, I need not rationalize my recusal in this case. However, since my mind has changed on this issue over the course of litigation, I will explain myself.

Although the Judiciary Law deems certain familial relationships to be completely and always partial, other types of relationships are, in reality, less clear. They vary greatly in degree of intimacy and esteem. Friendships, for example, span a spectrum from breakroom conversation partners to inseparable best friends. It is impossible for statutes to specify which of these relationships warrant recusal—particularly because a person's level of esteem waxes and wanes over time. Most established relationships have a degree of certainty that has not yet developed in those that are brand new. Fiancés are secure in their partiality for each other; a couple who have not yet enjoyed their first date are less sure. Therefore, generally speaking, a challenge to a judge's objectivity in the latter circumstance would not be "reasonable." Nor would it be appropriate for an independent tribunal to draw conclusions. Only the judge himself knows all the facts, the situation, and the true intensity of his feelings.

Although third parties shall have nothing to say in such circumstances, it may actually be the case that a judge is truly partial. Partiality is not a conscious decision; no principled judge sets out deliberately to impose his bias in a case. In fact, partiality is so involuntary that a judge may think he is objective even as he tips the balance. Even the most honest judge is still merely a man. Therein lies the paradox of discretion under _People v. Moreno_: although the judge is the only appropriate arbiter of his own feelings, he is probably the last to realize that his bias has made him unfair. Therefore, a judge considering recusal under §100.3(E)(1) of the Rules of the Chief Administrative Judge should wisely disqualify himself based on his acknowledged affection rather than on his unconscious partiality.

In applying the facts of this case, therefore, I will not discuss what mistakes I may have made in prior rulings, nor will I conjecture on my prospective objectivity. For if I am, in fact, partial, then my partiality will also cloud my judgment on this matter. Instead, I shall assess my sentiments, and if my affections are substantial, then I must conclude that partiality is present.

In this instance, the facts overwhelmingly necessitate my recusal. For the past several years, Miss Christine Dale, Esq., has been employed with Respondent's counsel, The Bronx Defense Project, and has appeared in my court many times. I therefore have had ample opportunity to observe and admire her skills and virtues. Such regard, by itself, does not usually merit recusal; judges typically like some attorneys' styles more than others. But over the past few months, Miss Dale and I have spent time together outside the courtroom, have expressed our mutual attraction, and have withstood ordeals in which our shared victories advanced our attachment. I now consider our partnership to be a greater honor than any position I have held in my lifetime. I only regret that I am merely a civil court judge, and not "a king, a genie, an emperor, an archangel, a god, so that [I] could cast a greater slave at her feet." Victor Hugo, _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_, Book VIII Ch. IV ¶ 62 (1831). As my affections in this case are very substantial, I therefore recuse.

I shall remit my disqualification under §100.3(F) of the Rules of the Chief Administrative Judge if the parties are in agreement; such stipulation to be filed no later than 20 days from the Notice of Entry of this order.

SO ORDERED,

/s/__

Erik R. Delgado, CCJ

**THE END**


End file.
